To be honest: I have always found roads interesting (weird, I know). I have always admired the way pavement connects people from coast to coast, whether we realize it or not, roads are actually always connected. 

This summer, as a nationwide traveling intern with Stor-Mor, I’ve spent more hours on the road that I could count (8,000+ miles-but who’s counting?). I have learned so much about myself, my future, and people. This internship is more than a camera and Facebook posts- it is about people. It is about customers, dealers, shop employees, home office employees, and everyone in-between. I have seen the uniqueness in each location branded with the Stor-Mor logo somewhere. These people show up to build and preserve something lasting- whether it is the building itself or the core values that come all the way from the top. 

From Texas to North Carolina, I have met people with so much drive and ambition it inspires me. Every interview I conduct I ask the interviewee to describe Stor-Mor in three words. 94% of the time, one of the words mentioned is “quality”. I know most of them mean the quality of the building, however the quality of the people are also admirable. 

This experience has taught me more than anything I could have imagined. I’ve learned how to see the light in any situation, create content (of course), and to always keep an extra battery. And through it all, I was not only capturing Stor-Mor’s story but the start of mine as well. Sometimes the impact of an internship or the people you meet along the way-isn’t stationary. Sometimes it happens in motion. 

In a sense, Stor-Mor is like the roads I think about so frequently. Each stop-whether it is a dealer, shop, or headquarters in KY- is intertwined together for one purpose. 

This blog post was written by MattiClaire Wheeler.