My name is Stephanie Girvan, and I was born and raised around the St. Joseph area. I was always the one who said I was leaving St. Joseph and never coming back. Well, I’m still here, but one of my passions has always been traveling. I spent the summer after graduation studying in Costa Rica. I love learning about other people and cultures – especially Latin culture, so I sort of expected to end up marrying a foreigner. I just thought my husband would be Latino. Instead, I met my husband, David, an Aussie, after quitting my job as an insurance agent to teach English in Argentina. I never went to Argentina, but David and I are getting ready to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary this May.

Last year in November we were blessed with the birth of our first child, a boy, Solomon David. At the time I became pregnant, I was working full-time in retail. Funny how that works – I worked retail in college to support myself while going to school. Several years later, I graduated with my undergraduate degree from Missouri Western then earned my MBA from the University of Missouri, Kansas City, only to find myself right back in retail. Go figure. Everyone tells you that having a child will change your life. I don’t think I realized how much it would change my life till after he was here. After spending four months at home with my son, I realized I couldn’t go back to work – at least the way I had previously defined it. Thankfully, God brought Susie into my life at just the right time, providing me with an opportunity to work from home without sacrificing precious time with my son.

A few of my favorite things:

• Adventure – I’m always up to try something new – except roller coasters because now that I’m older they make me sick!
•  Milo – an Australian chocolate drink made from malted barley
•  Laughing – a good laugh does wonders for the soul
•  Zumba – a throwback to my old salsa dancing days
• Warm weather – I love the sun!

Words I believe that describe me:

• Passionate, driven, and a little silly
•  Favorite bible verse: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” Phillipians 4:23

Susan’s words on Stephanie –

Aside from Jenny Wescoat, I’ve known Stephanie the longest of all the members on our team. (I was forced to know Jenny when our parents decided one daughter wasn’t good enough and she stripped me of my title as “Favorite”. JK – Jenny knows I love her!) We actually met at Missouri Western taking marketing classes, forced into a study group together under the tutelage of Dr. Sharon Wagner. We quickly discovered a number of similarities in our approach to life and faith and became fast friends.

As often occurs in life, we went our separate ways, pursuing our own passions and following the paths of different opportunities. I discovered Stephanie was back in town when I found her on MySpace a few years back and then happened to attend the same Zumba class a while later. At about the same time, when we needed to expand our team and Stephanie joined us as a writer.

When a promotion called for her in retail and her pregnancy settled in, it was time for Stephanie to move on and we mourned the loss of an excellent writer with a wonderful work ethic. Fortunately for us, the arrival of that baby brought us full circle. We needed to expand our team again and Stephanie was looking for an opportunity to work from home.

I’m excited that Stephanie is back and bringing her talents with her. She’s filling a great need and her experience and marketing education are a perfect fit for our expanding customer base. We’re just at the beginning – I can’t wait to see where this takes us.