It's A Boy!

Three weeks ago I was living with 5 of my old college cohorts and our Miniature Boston Terrier, Sunny D, in suburban Elmhurst, Illinois. This past weekend I found myself in the company of design elites the likes of Adam Glassman (creative director of O, The Oprah Magazine) and Chip DeGrace (my boss’s boss of yesteryear and creative director of FLOR) in the city that Jonathan Larson once referred to as “the center of the universe”. The change has been quick and somewhat unexpected, but it has already been quite the exciting and humbling experience. My name is Sean Hurtubise and I am the newest (and only Y chromosome possessing) member of the BDE team. 

The U-Haul, prior to setting out on our journey

            Born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, my sister, Beth, and I decided to take the New York City plunge a couple of months ago and found our idea’s fruition surprisingly expedited. Upon deciding to forge east, the siblings Hurtubise had come to terms with the fact that we were most likely going to be unemployed when exiting the Lincoln Tunnel and entering our new home. However, a week before the move I received word that Beth had been offered a job with a small marketing firm and that I would now be the lone ash in the unemployment urn. I moved with little more than a signed lease, a U-Haul filled with my material existence and one phone number in my Moleskine notebook of a woman who was a complete stranger to me by the name of Beth Dickstein. Five days, two interviews and several untimely almost terrorist attacks on the city later, I found myself employed.  

The view from my 6th-floor walk-up

            While at Elmhurst College, I majored in music education with a vocal emphasis and went on to work in both a customer service and retail capacity with FLOR. Suffice it to say that marketing and public relations are very new and fresh to me, not to mention the pulse and rhythms of this infinitely vibrant city. Though, I must admit, for a city with such an intimidating reputation the folks on the concrete jungle welcome wagon seem to be unseasonably warm.

--Sean Hurtubise