One year with our Head of Operations, Marina Erickson

Team Letter | September 6, 2023

September 6, 2023

Good Morning, Alpaca! 

Oh hey, does something feel just a LITTLE more joyful today?! That’s because it’s Marina Erickson’s anniversary!! In celebration of our extraordinary operations leader, I want to offer a few thoughts on Our Lady of Operations, on her first year with Alpaca. Congratulations, Marina!

Let’s start by saying that Marina’s contributions and impact are nearly impossible to capture in a single message. I’ve been thinking about this letter for a couple of weeks now, and the word that keeps surfacing in my mind is this one: transformation. 

There are moments in a young company where everything feels absolutely impossible. The problems aren’t getting solved with the solutions you’ve created so far. The team is working so much, and so hard, and often so inefficiently. The choices you bravely made to “do things that don’t scale” in service of getting those first customers? Well, they don’t scale!  And those growing pains make you wonder why you’re working so hard, for something still so small. These moments are inevitable, and they’ll happen a lot of times during your time at a start-up, if the company is doing it right. Because these moments mean one thing: growth.

I met Marina Erickson long before she worked with Alpaca. And from afar, I’ve wondered and admired how Marina transformed her own life in mysterious, magical, and sometimes nearly unbelievable ways. I knew Marina first as my bartender! I knew from the beginning that she was also a mother, a talented doodler and artist, and someone that made you feel like you were someone special, whenever you walked in the door.

But over the past few years, I watched with awe as Marina took on challenges and transformed right before our eyes. Marina joyfully burst onto the scene as a 4.0 student (yes!!) putting herself through school. She became an ultra marathon runner (and not just once!). She stepped into her role as an extraordinary wife who sets the bar for what partnership should look like. Gardener, chef, friend, and always mother, doodler, pet-lover, person-lover, life-lover. I don’t dare to think I know all of the transformation that Marina has accomplished in her life, but from what someone on the outside can see, it’s pretty damn impressive.

So how lucky were WE that one day last August, Marina accepted a job with Alpaca, over a text message! (hat tip to Kimberly for the referral!) And as Marina came in and surveyed the chaos of our September packout, she quickly and deftly applied her gift of transformation to our company.  

She’s an organizational wizard who took our operations from chaos to order. She’s clear and confident in the operation she runs to support teachers. She’s a manager who is teaching me how to better lead people every single day. 

In short, Marina is the heart and soul of our team’s culture of celebration and joy. 

Every time I turn around, Marina is growing something, creating a bit of beauty, improving a system, building someone up, asking if we need a snack, and making something better. What has never changed is that she always makes each person feel like they are someone special.

What’s ahead for this constant magical surprise of a person in our company? I’d be a silly billy to pretend I know that. But I know two things for sure: 

First, Alpaca’s growth will mean more moments that require us to dig deep and transform who we are in the world and how we build our operations. Second, that we’ve got an extraordinary leader in Marina to take us there.

Thank you, Marina, for an amazing first year – crank up the Mariah Carey, it’s time to celebrate! (And then, of course, it’s time to clean the office, put everything in order, and rest like a bunny).

♥,

KB