You’re not alone!

We do our best to meet people where they want to be met in the marketing process.  Take the two brochures, below.

The one on the left, Willapa Harbor Scenic Highway 101 Willapa Heritage Corridor, was a project of Raymond High School senior Mitchell Hatfield.  He did a great job designing the brochure.  Keleigh helped him get the work from Publisher into a format an offset printer could use, then offered subsidized pricing to get them printed by the Willapa Harbor Chamber of Commerce and Dennis Company.  Pick up a copy at either the Willapa Harbor Chamber office or the Long Beach Peninsula Visitors Bureau and see if you can find all of the 400+ steel sculptures in the area!

The Astoria-Warrenton Chamber designed a brochure or their upcoming Ambassadors & Greeters Convention and just needed someone to take their art and quickly turn it into a short run of tri-fold brochures at a good price.  Done and done!

Perhaps Long Beach, Washington’s most infamous landmark, the chainsaw carved “Mermaid” (aka Merman) was once located downtown and now lives a mile or so north at the Mermaid Motel.  Keith’s photo of this hunka hunka burnin’ love will soon be featured in a book on Washington curiosities.  We’ll tell you more when it comes out (the book, that is).

Friend of the Peninsula Connor Doran took ‘America’s Got Talent’ to new heights in June with a surprising audition that involved flying a kite indoors.  The 17-year-old high school student gave a hypnotic and lyrical performance, set to Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Angel,’ and by the time it was over, the crowd was on their feet.

It was a surprise to most of America, but not to kite enthusiasts, who enjoy the World Kite Museum’s Windless Kite Festival each Presidents’ Day weekend.

TONIGHT, AUGUST 17th, CONNOR IS BACK ON AMERICA’S GOT TALENT!

He’s got a second chance to show America the magic of kite flying tonight at 9PM (all time zones).  A vote for Connor is a vote for kiting.  How appropriate that today is the 2nd day of the Washington State International Kite Festival!

Watch Doran’s audition:

And be sure to tune in to watch tonight!

Every company needs a mascot, don’t you think?  Ours, who spend most of their days in Arizona, Alaska and California, headed off to Disneyland this week.  Rumor has it they wanted to take kites from the World Kite Museum and Hall of Fame with them to the theme park, but some grown-up got in the way of that plan.  Alas, they’ll be forced to eat candy from Long Beach’s Candy Man, while wearing beachdog noses, instead.

¡Lo quiero tanto, mis primos!

It’s always smile time when we get some good press.  There’s something though, about being selected for an honor by an outfit you truly respect that makes it all the sweeter.  We’re very honored to be ShoreBank Pacific’s Featured Story this month:

Read the story.

Why do we admire ShoreBank?

When Keith and I first came to the Peninsula, we ran a little motel and RV park in Seaview.  When it came time to refinance, we found ourselves intrigued by a new bank in town, ShoreBank Pacific.  This particular refinance was a bit tricky, and we’d heard they weren’t afraid of plans like ours that didn’t quite fit the traditional mold.  We were also aware of a few local projects the bank had funded managed by good, hard-working people making a positive impact on their world.  It sounded like it could be a good fit.

We gathered our paperwork, collated, stapled, color-coded and tabbed for easy reference, gave it to our loan specialist, and went back to remodeling cabins.  Little did we know how different a bank ShoreBank really is!  Before we knew it, we’d had an in-depth interview and assessments of our sustainable practices which culminated in a report of praises and suggested improvements.  Not that the loan was contingent on the improvements; it was just info to make us think and help us do better.  The property walk-through didn’t feel like an inspection so much as going for a walk with someone who genuinely wanted to know us, our business, and how we fit into, and supported, our community.  The experience was above and beyond expectations every step of the way.

After the refinancing was complete, we continued to receive occasional visits and phone calls from our new friends at the bank.  They’d check in to see how things were going and if there was anything they help us with and would comment on changes we made that incorporated sustainable practices and locally sourced goods.  An occasional plant or home-baked good found a new home…

So, when the time came to refinance our happy little beachdog.com building, guess who we called?  ShoreBank, of course.  And the experience has been equally challenging–for all the RIGHT reasons.  Who knew the money part of refinancing could be the easy part?  We really like working with a bank who cares about the success of our business and our community as much as the risk and margin on loan in front of them.   It feels like we’re cut from the same cloth.

Needless to say, when our friendly bankers phoned to ask if we’d be willing to interview for their feature story this month it made us blush and beam a bit.  We hope you’ll read the article and learn more beachdog.com, and click around the site a bit to discover ShoreBank.