“We wouldn’t be able to achieve the success that CI has had over the last 17 years without every talented Impacter who has been a part of our organization, past and present,” he said. “Even though I recently joined CI in late 2021, I’ve seen the amazing work that everyone has produced. Being a part of a collaborative team who is mission and purpose driven has been rewarding. Come join us!”
CI prides itself on being able to promote from within and create viable career paths for its Impacters. Read more below from 4 of our most-tenured Impacters about why they love their job and working at CI.
Meet David
David Ludwick became an Impacter in 2007 when he was hired on as a temporary administrative assistant. Today, he serves as the company’s operations director after holding positions including circulation manager, operations manager and general manager for CI Printing.
“I feel like I make a difference here,” he said. “I’ve had opportunities I never would’ve had in a much bigger company. I’ve pretty much been the architect of our IT infrastructure.”
In addition to building the company’s IT department, Ludwick also managed the construction and operation of the company’s printing press, which opened in 2016 and is located next to the CI HQ.
“When we started printing our first newspaper at Community Impact Printing, I realized we had just finished this massive project and it was the culmination of all this work we had done,” Ludwick said. “That was a huge deal to me.”
Meet Amy
Amy Denney has been an Impacter since 2010 when she joined the editorial team as a reporter. She was promoted to an editor position two years later for Northwest Austin, which she held for nearly eight years. During that time, Denney advocated to create more editorial opportunities, including senior reporter and editor positions, along with the creation of the Editorial Advisory Committee, which she helped lead. She now serves as managing editor for the Austin Metro and appreciates the company’s ability to innovate.
“If something doesn’t work we try something else,” she said. “The fact that we have weeklong training for our new employees is testimony to that. We have better prepared our employees to stay here.”
Denney said working at CI is not a status-quo job; employees work hard and they are rewarded regularly.
“You’re going to put in a lot of effort, but we recognize hard work and celebrate successes,” she said. “We are always looking for how we can better serve the community, and thanking our employees for what they do to benefit our readers.”
Meet Denise
Denise Seiler started with CI in 2007 as a receptionist with a goal of becoming an account executive, and she did just that, even with no official previous sales experience. She served as an account executive for nearly 10 years before moving into a general manager role in 2018. Seiler now serves as general manager for the company’s Georgetown and Leander/Cedar Park editions, two of the company’s longstanding papers.
“Even if you try and fail, [CEO John Garrett ] doesn’t give up on people. The opportunities that are given here and the amount of faith that our owners, John and Jennifer, have in every employee, it’s unlike any company.”
Seiler said she believes another unique aspect about CI is the number of “boomerangs,” or former employees who have returned to work at CI.
“Whatever reason they leave CI, we regularly have people come back,” she said. “It goes to show that comparing us to other companies, it’s incredibly rare to find what we have at CI.”
Meet Breanna
For Impacters like Breanna Flores, having the flexibility to telework and also work from the office in such close collaboration with her team in Dallas-Fort Worth is another plus for the company’s culture.
“Being able to be inspired by other people, or bounce ideas off other people, it’s such a different environment from other places I worked at,” she said. “Here, everyone is so supportive and another person’s success matters as much as your own.”
Flores was hired in 2016 as a graphic designer, and she was promoted multiple times to become a senior graphic designer, associate art production manager, and now serves as art production manager for the nine DFW metro editions of CI.
“I appreciate that I’ve never been made to feel like I’m just an employee. Even when I was a new hire, I never felt like part of the bottom line,” she said. “The fact that one of our Stones [or values] is Innovation is an opportunity for every employee in the company. We are always looking to grow and we do that through our people.”
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