THE ARTISTS BEHIND THE WORK
In a world filled with website after website, there is militaryluggage.com
It is special. It is beautiful. It is magical.
Most people cannot explain the incredible aura & charisma that militaryluggage.com possesses.
We can. It is a website that was crafted with love and with dedication by many people. The collective efforts of the different personalities involved mesh together onto the site to display the magic you see but cannot explain.
Here are the people that were involved in creating this magic:
1. Rachel Robertson
On February 15th, 2012 (which was her 2 year anniversary with our company), Rachel began loading all of the products onto the website. She worked diligently and steadily to complete the enormous task. While most manufacturers provided decent pictures for their products, Rachel took her own pictures for the one's she did not feel met the website's high standards. When militaryluggage.com becomes a huge success, she will look back fondly upon these days and remember that she played such a vital role in shaping a new company at only 23 years of age.
Rachel's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"I am very excited to be starting something new with a great company like this one! The last two years have been AWESOME!
With all the great people that have spent a lot of time on this site, I have no doubt that the future will be SPECTACTULAR!"
2. Alicia Martin
Alicia spent countless hours both at work and home tweaking pictures to make sure they were represented accurately and aesthetically. While working her magic with the pictures, she would talk to us about adjusting the saturation, the hue and other things that would make our head hurt. On an adminstrative level, Alicia is to our team what a point guard is to their basketball team. She runs the offense and her skillful passes & fast break style leads to many alley-oops and flashy dunks.
Alicia's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"I feel so lucky to be able to be part of the beginning of something so great. It is an honor to see my work come to life. Working with a great team allows us to provide the excellent customer service and products that made this company what is today."
3. Jimmy Hondros
If we continue with the basketball analogy, Jimmy is the "big man" on our team who overwhelms his opponents with his size and reaches over them to put the ball in the hoop. Jimmy helped create something out of nothing as he had to somehow make space to fit all of the new stock in our already crowded warehouse. He managed to make it work and create a separate area for all the new stock by reorganizing certain areas of the warehouse. Like Rachel, Jimmy is also very young and well ahead of his time in maturity and work ethic.
Jimmy's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"I am very excited for this new website to get started. I started less then a year ago with the company, and it is an experience that I cant explain. Walking in to hear some say.."25 or 37 online orders" Just makes me happy. With this new Site opening up, I am hoping that those numbers double. Ive learned alot in the past few days about control and responsibilities, and I am ready to use that on this new site."
4. Neil Watkins
Neil's value to our team doesn't always necessarily lie in the work that he does but more so in that he acts as a voice of reason in many decisions the company makes. He also serves as a father figure to many people on the team. He is retired Air Force and this certainly gives him much wisdom and experience that allows him to contribute to the big picture of the company. When we think of militaryluggage.com and Neil's role we will skip over the many contributions he made and instead always be reminded of his reaction when he saw the current look for the site. He said "Michael I am getting goosebumps just looking at this - it is beautiful!" Neil is usually right on the money on most things that he says and he has said over and over again that militaryluggage.com is going to be highly successful.
Neil's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"When the idea of (Military Luggage) was born it was based on a few simple but very important ideas: Provide quality bags, packs and cases, at a reasonable price, as fast as possible, with customer service that goes above and beyond. We greatly appreciate the Military and Law Enforcement community and all the sacrifices they make every day to protect our freedoms. We hope that this web site makes their search for gear a little easier. I am very proud to be a part of such a great team and this web site could not have been possible without everyoneâs hard work."
5. Izzy Hale
Izzy is the daughter of Alicia Martin and has the honor of being the youngest person to contribute to the site. How young? Izzy is only 12 years old - yet she performed a very valuable task. On the last day of her spring break, Izzy spent the entire day uploading pictures of every product onto our facebook page. She organized the products into photo albums by color. Izzy is in the 7th grade, a member of the Beta Club, classified as Academically Gifted and regularly makes the honor roll. With a role model like Alicia, Izzy will no doubt go far in life and be successful in whatever she does.
Izzy's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"I enjoyed every moment of helping. I had so much fun. I am glad what I did benefited the company."
6. Rob Kalmeyer
Rob is the owner of Brain Box Development - the firm hired by our company for the design and development of our site. We are grateful to Brainbox for getting our site to a certain stage and we are especially grateful to Rob's lead designer Jessica (details about her contribution are listed separately).
7. Michael Sujanani
Michael came up with the domain name militaryluggage.com and kept telling everyone that everything about the site must be perfect. Beyond that nobody really knows what else Michael did for the site.
Michael's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"This site is a dream come true on many levels. First it allows me to honor my Mother who has taught me the value of hard work and has always believed in me - without which none of this would be possible. Second, it allows me to honor my Uncle who has been preaching innovation innovation innovation for over 18 months - without whose motivating words and direction this project may have never materialized. And lastly it allows me to honor the time tested saying that in order to succeed you must fail. We began with a failed logo before we settled upon a successful one. We hired the wrong firm to design the site before finding the right one. We sketched the wrong layout before coming up with a winning one. We had to fail to succeed. I would be remiss if I did not thank my wife who put up with all the long hours, weekends away from home and supported me throughout the process. Playing a role in launching this site will always be one of my fondest memories"
8. Lisa Mitchell
Lisa is the sales manager at Mercury Luggage - our most favored supplier. Throughout the process of setting this site up, Lisa acted not just as a supplier but as a consultant. She advised us on the look of the site and she personally double checked each page, each category, and each product of the website and facebook page prior to launch. Lisa has very little free time and yet she made time to show her support in countless ways. Normally one thinks of a supplier as someone on the outside, but we consider Lisa an insider in our company. We are extremely grateful for all that she did and more importantly the genuineness with which she did it.
Lisa's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"Even though I work for another company, I truly appreciate the opportunity to be part of something so great. I genuinely have an interest in the success of militaryluggage.com and I will take great pride in reviewing each product.
I have witnessed the passion and the incredible amount of hard work and long hours that have gone into this dream. This was definitely a team effort and it was a combination of design, execution and achieving the objective.
Michael is the heart and soul of militaryluggage and he possesses the highest level of energy and enthusiasm I have ever seen and that spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment. I have confidence that the future of this company is unlimited and I am very thankful to be part of it. I am looking forward to growing together."
9. Jessica Thornton
Jessica is the lead designer at Brain Box Development and very good at what she does. She was able to take our vision for the site and translate it into something beautiful and that we are all proud of. Jessica also designed our facebook cover and gave it a consistent look with that of the site. We found Jessica to be a breath of fresh air because unlike many designers who get offended with any criticism of their work, Jessica remained focused on giving us what we wanted and mantained a good attitude throughout the process. Designers like Jessica are rare and we feel like we found a needle in a haystack.
Jessica's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"For me, working on this project was truly a pleasure. It is not often I get to work with a client with such focus, dedication and a clear vision of their project. Every great design requires involvement from the client and rarely happens on the first mock-up. Michael was always quick to respond and was eager to help me understand the vision of militaryluggage.com. He worked diligently with me to bring the design to what it has become.
After the first consultation, it was clear this project began long before it ever crossed my desk. Many people have labored long hours to bring this site and company into fruition. I am honored to have been given the opportunity to play my small part."
10. Daniel Trimpey
Daniel is the owner of pageprogressive.com. About 2 weeks from launch, we had issues on our website such as things not aligning properly, color schemes not being right on certain pages and other nitpicky details. Like a champ, Daniel saved the day - and gave these trouble areas of our site a much improved look that jived with the rest of our site. Daniel's own site is stunning visually which shows the level of design capabilities his firm has. Daniel is easy-going and keeps you in the loop as he completes tasks. We would highly recommend Daniel's company to anybody needing his services.
Daniel's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"It has been a pleasure working with the folks at Military Luggage Company! Michael and Manish are awesome to work with and I appreciate all of their help with the project and their kind attitude. Thanks for the opportunity to work with you!"
11. Rene Marcel Argoud
Marcel is a sales representative at SOC - the maker of the famous Bug Out Bag. From the very first time we dealt with Marcel we found him to be extremely eager and cooperative to work with. One of his most distinguishing characteristics is his oh so eloquent manner of speaking. His specific contribution to militaryluggage.com was as a consultant - not only did he take the time to give us his opinions of the site - he made a wonderful suggestion and took the time to draw it all out for us & email a screenshot. So high is Marcel's level of enthusiasm for militarylugagge that he actually gave us his cell phone number and asked that we call him with updates on how sales are going the first weekend. Marcel has all the right ingredients to go very far in life.
Marcel's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
âAs a member of the Sandpiper of California staff and sales team I have had many opportunities to work with a myriad of people from companies both big and small but none have impressed me so greatly and so quickly as Michael, Joan, Neil and Rachel. I have had the pleasure of working with each one of them on several different projects including SOCâs cooperation with Militaryluggage.com. Iâm sure that Militaryluggage.com is headed for a level of success that will parallel their high level of dedication and commitment. Theyâre an A+ team thatâs done all their homework and put together a site thatâs not only FAST, but intuitive; not to mention aesthetically pleasing.â
12. Manish Butani
Manish played a big picture role in the background. In addition to his full time job, Manish set up merchant accounts and integrated their payment systems onto the site. He also set up the settings shipping rates for UPS and USPS which is more complicated than the average person would imagine. While Manish does not work for Volusion, he many times acted as "tech support" for them when we had issues in setting up the site the way we wanted. Manish also acted as an advisor on the strategic direction of the company.
Manish's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"Even though I haven't had direct interaction with most members on this team, I know we have a great team behind this new venture. And even without being physically at headquarters, I can see that this great team is headed by a great leader who has really inspired everyone to give militaryluggage.com the utmost attention to detail. In many cases, the best ideas are the simple ones but that simple idea has to be implemented in the right way to unlock its potential. I really feel that's what we all have done here and I'm happy to have been able to contribute. I'm looking forward to a great launch and excited about working on ways we can grow on this foundation we've established!"
13. Danny Shamdasani
Danny performed one of the more vital roles for militaryluggage.com - paying for everything.
As the CFO of our companies, Danny keeps everything on track from a financial perspective - making sure that budgets are adhered to and that dollars are utilized in the best possible manner for the company.
Danny's personal thoughts about militaryluggage.com:
"This is the first company where our primary contact with customers will be through the internet. Besides presenting a professional and user friendly website, countless hours have gone into many details that our target customers will notice and appreciate. The enthusiasm and extensive direction from Michael at the top has given everyone ownership and pride in the finished product"
14. BJ
BJ is a friend and advisor to some of the people listed on this page. He provides much inspiration when necessary and his advice is always right on the mark. Those of us that know BJ are very thankful to have him as a part of our lives.
Thank You To Everyone For Your Hard Work In Making This Site A Reality! We Have Achieved Something That Is Magnificent.