The Faces Behind Our Magnets, Part 19

This week, meet two team members who normally work behind the scenes.
Throughout any given day, you'll find digital pressman Bill Britton tucked away among our presses, making sure every order is printed to perfection.

One flight up, usually behind a computer screen, you'll find Laura Weeks, our marketing communications coordinator (and author of this blog series — hello!). As our social media administrator, she's (I'm) always looking for new ways to engage our followers, whether it's through photos, videos, Twitter campaigns or blog posts.

Bill Britton

How long have you been with Magnets USA? One year.

What does a typical day at work look like? Heavy production and multiple challenges.

What's the best part of the job? Being challenged, seeing the finished product.

What's the best adventure you've ever been on? Backpacking in Havasupai Canyon, in the west end of the Grand Canyon, and seeing how the Havasupai people live.

If you could have dinner with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? My father. I didn't get to have enough dinners with him, and he always had the best advice about life and how to live it.

What do you love most about your family? The fact that they love me (most of the time).

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Laura Weeks

How long have you been with Magnets USA? Since June, so I’m still learning new things every day.

What’s the most rewarding part of the job? My position allows me to do so many of the things I love, including photography and videography, design, writing and using social media to build connections.

What does a typical day at the office look like? Without fail, each morning starts with coffee and one of several Indie-folk playlists on Spotify. Then I catch up with our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Though every day is a little different, most involve shooting photos for marketing campaigns, creating fresh designs for our website and writing copy for different departments as needed.

What's one of your biggest accomplishments? In 2012, I spent a month in Italy studying multimedia journalism. Not only was it my first time out of the country, but we were in a town where very little English was spoken. Despite these challenges, I sought out my own story idea and developed it across written, visual and audio platforms. Running around the city, scheduling interviews and photo shoots, late-night editing sessions — I loved every second of it. In the end, my photography was voted No. 1 and article among the top five by our faculty, which included a Pulitzer-winning reporter, a Washington Post photographer and a former New York Times art director. Want to see it? Take a look.

What was the last experience that made you a stronger person? My dad died my freshman year of college. It was shattering in every way possible — until I started turning that tragic experience into positive ones, like becoming a staff photographer and later, an editor, for my college newspaper and applying for the program in Italy. Three years later, I memorialized my dad's life into one of my favorite photography projects, called "Portrait of My Father."

If you could give one piece of advice to large group of people, what would it be? When I was little, I remember my mom telling me, "If nothing else, have compassion for people." Those are always words worth passing along.

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