Yes, Shef.

I am thrilled to announce that Bryon Sheffield (you can call him Shef!) has joined Crow Haus as co-founder and director of strategy. Bringing with him nearly 30 years of digital strategy experience, a brilliant brain and a heart of actual freaking gold, Shef and his timing are exactly right for this new role.

We met in fifth grade. I thought Shef was fascinating because he was a) from Florida (I’d never met anyone from Florida before), and b) the most mature and thoughtful boy my age I had ever met. Our teachers considered us solid leadership material because we were overly-serious nerds when we weren’t being one of the class clowns (him) or dressing like Andie from Pretty in Pink (me) or talking excessively about movies and music (both of us). We became best friends. While I think we took turns being in love with each other, we never quite got around to “going around,” as we said then.

I can’t recall what drove me to write Shef a long, angst-ridden note one night in seventh grade, but in essence my little world was on fire and I was very probably on the brink of perishing. The last line in the note read, “The only thing that could make things worse is if you told me you were moving back to Florida.”

Reader! He was, in fact, moving back to Florida! A tragedy! It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times! We shall draw a veil over the deep teenage sadness that followed.

I asked to be driven to the airport to see him off (remember when you could go right to the gate and wave good-bye as your person strode into the airplane tunnel?). Let me tell you, LAX had never seen a more brokenhearted 13-year-old with an asymmetrical and aggressively Sun-In’d bob. Please witness (this photo was artfully desaturated in post because I’m still embarrassed at how red and swollen my face was):

Well, off he went. It was terrible. We wrote letters to each other for a bit and that was all right, but we fell out of touch. It was too much distance and too slow a communication method. We were babies! (And let’s not forget that long-distance rates were very much A Thing back then.)

Now, from opposite sides of the country, we’re co-leading Crow Haus, where we do excellent work for excellent people and have a strict no-assholes policy. (Also, we believe in naps. I’m making naps an integral part of the Crow Haus culture.) It’s crazy, and it’s perfect. And I am so excited for what comes next.

~ Emma