I was general manager and the board had been pushing me for years. The management team had been pushing me for years. You need a strong number two person, right? And at other co-ops, we've seen, oh, that's called a store manager.

And so finally, I said, okay, we're going to do this. And Greg's coming for his interview and we're walking up and we're just chatting. But I'm getting this tingling feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm liking this guy. And it didn't take long. I forget during the interview or whatever, but I'm thinking, oh, we want to get this guy here. I'm also thinking, oh, this could be my exit strategy, because I've started thinking about retirement. When am I going to retire? Five years? Whatever. I don't know.

So yeah, I was sort of living in Massachusetts. And my wife and I were newly married. I wanted to get to Vermont. She was looking for a job. I was looking for a job. Whoever got the job in Vermont, we would make the move. And I worked at the Whole Foods Market at the time. I got to get out of here. But so I applied to the co-op in like February.

They called me in June. And they're like, yeah, you want to come for an interview? And I said, yes, I do. So I came up like a week before, came down, shopped the store, walked around, got to know the area. And then came back and met Glenn down in the store. I asked him some questions about the co-op. And then I went home.

Three weeks later, I got called to come back for a final interview. We gave a whole store tour, and I sat down in a conference room with Glenn and Laura, who was an HR manager, and everybody on the management team. Oh, there were 10 other people around. And we sat down, and we went through this whole interview, and we stopped for lunch.

You didn't get to eat much, because we all started asking questions.

And also, I hate eating in front of people for the first time, too. Oh, it was awful. And I remember, I also remember before that, you say, oh, we're going to eat. Here's our menu. This is what we make in the deli. What would you like? I remember going through the menu and being like, I don't know, it's a cooperative. Is everybody a vegetarian? Can I order a meat sandwich? Will that, like, turn people off?

Like, he had a good interview. But he was eating that chicken salad. I can't.

Yeah, so we went back. And I remember being nervous. I really liked this. I liked the store. I liked the town. I liked the questions that people were asking. I liked the care that everybody had about the ends and the core values and like centering on that. And my wife, Leanne, she said, you know, it's like you're interviewing to become like the head thoracic surgeon.

Like it is a grocery store, right?

Yeah. But it's more.

And a couple of weeks later, around the 4th of July, you gave me a call back. I got to take the position. It was crazy. But it was just such a vibe.