For those not aware, this is the story behind one of the many tiles on pixelmap.io, an early NFT created in 2016.
My very first real job in IT (aside from helpdesk my freshman year), was working as the system admin for a company named Beauchamp McSpadden. At the time they hired me, the majority of my experience was in running large-scale LAN parties, but thankfully they took a chance on me. I’ll never forget one of the interview questions: “What do you find most exciting about insurance?”. To this day, I still don’t know how anyone could answer that question properly, I believe I answered: “…nothing?”.
Mike Beauchamp was the president of the company at the time. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t a Wikipedia page because even the story of the company itself is fantastic. Several generations prior to Mike, the Beauchamps & McSpaddens if I remember correctly each had a competing insurance agency. One went off to war, however, and the other promised to keep both businesses going until the other came back. I apologize to any Beauchamps or McSpaddens reading this if I am misremembering it, but I just remember thinking it was such an amazing story.
I ended up working for Mike for several years, and he is by far the main reason I stayed at that company longer than any other that followed. I have so many great memories that can only happen at a company like that. I remember having an emergency with a domain controller’s hard drive failing, and spending the night in my office, only to have Mike bring a blanket in, and another wonderful person named Skip Daughtry ordering Pizza for me (Skip & Karen Daughtry are one of the sweetest couples to have ever existed, they also gave me my first couch in my first apartment). I also remember helping Mike print several thousand Christmas cards while trying to explain that I desperately needed to figure out what was wrong with our Exchange server.
On a side note, Skip was a tank commander prior to selling insurance, and Karen wrote several romance novels inspired by him. Picture the beaver family from Narnia, make them a bit more awesome, and that’s the Daughtry’s.
Ok back to the story. Mike and his wonderful wife Angie started a little shop called “Modocs Market” modocsmarket.com. I would occasionally help out there as well with random IT issues, and if anyone is EVER in the area I highly recommend going there, it’s an endearing & wonderful place to get some coffee and relax with friends. I haven’t been there in a few years, but writing this I’m fairly certain I’m going to head back up there to visit. :)
When I finally left Beauchamp McSpadden, it felt like I was leaving a family. Later I would go on to work for companies like Angie’s List, Salesforce, Amazon, etc., and none of them compare to what it felt like working with those amazing people that took a chance on me.
Mike is also one of the few people I know that truly spends his time trying to improve the world. I don’t think he’s selling any insurance anymore, but I do know that he started an annual huge river cleanup that’s removed literally multiple tons of trash from a nearby river (excuse me, I meant 62 tons wabashriverdefenders.org). I talked to him the other day and he was taking a few hundred kids down the Wabash River on a field trip. I wish everyone could know him and his family. Bob Beauchamp is one of the best photographers I’ve ever met, and all of his pictures were of places he would take his wife Sharon on vacation. Andy Beauchamp has a little Donkey named Gus that he takes with him EVERYWHERE (I hope so much that little guy is still alive, such a cool Donkey).
The accounting department, after quite a bit of hesitation, even let me set the company up as the first one to accept BTC for an insurance policy in 2013! https://www.insurancetech.com/channels/are-insurers-ready-for-bitcoin/d/d-id/1314954d41d.html? They were beyond understanding, and the only time I think they ever anything but kind to me was when I started unplugging CAT5 cables in the basement to figure out which ones were actually still being used during tax season. In hindsight, I agree a heads up would have been ideal :).
There is no moral to this story, I just wanted to say thank you to Mike, the Beauchamp’s and the McSpadden’s, and everyone that has been willing to take a chance on someone. Modoc’s was named after an elephant that quite literally walked into the building that would become Modocs Market, looking for peanuts. No, I did not make that story up. Because of that, Mike began collecting elephant figurines, statues, pretty much anything you can think of elephant-related. So it only made sense that if I was going to dedicate a tile to him, it would be of an elephant.
Thank you so much for reading, and Mike if you read this, thank you for being my favorite boss I’ve ever had (no offense to my other bosses since then, I like all of you too, but the bar was set very high).
Oh, and here’s the tile :)
https://opensea.io/assets/0x050dc61dfb867e0fe3cf2948362b6c0f3faf790b/1441
