Sandy the Foundry’s Hospitality Manager is retiring

Sep 08, 2016

Sandy the Foundry’s Hospitality Manager is retiring

by Mike Olson

Hello Friends of the Foundry,

In October we will be celebrating our 10-year anniversary. Over that time many of you have met and have grown a friendship with our oldest employee, Sandy. In dog years she has reached retirement age, and so Sandy and I will be at the Foundry Sept. 8, 9, & 14 as she finishes out her last full days as Hospitality Manager.

For those that don’t know Sandy’s history:

I adopted Sandy in the winter of 2006. She was a hurricane Katrina rescue and found her way to the Dane County Human Shelter via the organization Shelter from the Storm. When she arrived in at the shelter, she was malnourished, wounded, and very timid from all the trauma. Along with all those challenges, being a Pitbull/Greyhound breed didn’t make it any easier for her to find a way out of that shelter and into a home. A few months after that I found Sandy on Petfinder.com as she had been taken in by a foster family who gave her the chance she deserved. Her profile on the adoption website listed Sandy as a friendly dog who was good with children, cats, and dogs. And it also said that she was healthy, housebroken, and didn’t bark. This is where I stepped in and can’t be more thankful for the family that gave Sandy her second chance at life.In August of 2006 Sandy and I entered an empty warehouse that would become the Madison Music Foundry. She would come to work with me every day as I started prepping the building for construction, waiting patiently for a couch to rest on and customers to entertain.

Two months later we took an empty 7000 square foot warehouse and turned it into the Madison Music Foundry. Over the next couple years, I found that Sandy was a true asset to the Foundry. She soon became everyone’s friend, young and old, as she came to work with me almost every day. On the days that she had off, the first question from everyone was “where is Sandy?”

Five years later I noticed a lump on her neck and it turned out to be a mass cell tumor. After an aggressive surgery that removed 9-inch margins around the tumor, one of her jugular veins, and a lymph node, she took a few weeks of rest and was back on the job. During her time out of I had many customers & friends suggestion that she needed her own Facebook page so that they could know how she was doing.At first I thought it was a bit silly, but after thinking about it I concluded that it was a nice way for her friends to stay in touch with how she was doing. While many of us have friends on Facebook, everyone that has friended Sandy is a true friend and has been touched by her kindness…or least had their knee licked by her.

Sandy has many more wonderful stories of friendships and accomplishments, but I’ll leave those for when we get together to thank her for her time as our Hospitality Managers/Couch Warmer/Floor Cleaner/Crum Patrol.

Sincerely,
Mike

Visit Sandy's Facebook page

Note: In addition to Madison Music Foundry Mike is also the owner of Blast House Studios, and 24/7 Rehearsal Studios.

 

Tags: personal stories (7)