Nick Sanders: “Kinda think it makes sense to go out for Japanese food since we’re Team Japan.”

The 2024 Choice One Office Olympics have concluded, and after fierce competition and some creative self-scoring, the team from Ireland was declared the winner. Regardless of placement, each team enjoyed a celebratory lunch together to honor a successful competition, minimal injuries, and admirable team spirit. To keep the international theme alive, a portion of the team representing Japan (l-r: Nick Sanders, Wes Wolters, Kaye Borchers, and Matt Lefeld; not pictured Caray Schmiesing and Mike Francis) headed to a local Japanese restaurant for their lunch.

While Team Japan somehow excelled more at toothpick javelin and cotton-ball shot-put than at eating with chopsticks, the lunch was still quite enjoyable. Cheers to the conclusion of the Office Olympics, and back to the everyday routine of swimming through field surveys and relaying projects from concept and utility modeling to design and construction. Let’s hear it for the potential of Choice One Office Winter Olympics in 2026… Office chair curling, ice cube hockey, and freestyle snow angel-ing, anyone?

Megan Bornhorst: “All I keep hearing are grunts and the occasional ‘ouch.’”

Let the games begin: the Choice One Summer Office Olympics are back! As you can tell from Megan’s comment (and much like Choice One’s 2021 competition), there were feats of incredible athleticism, controversial scoring inquires, and minor injuries.

Similar to the real deal in Paris this year, there were many highs and lows during Choice One’s week of competitive events. The highs included a 15-foot toothpick “javelin” throw by co-op Nick “Scooter” Schmidt, Steve Goessling’s incredible accuracy and perfect score in rubber band archery, and a high-scoring, innovative throwing [and grunting, apparently] style in cotton-ball shotput by Kyle Siegrist.

And then, the lows: a sore elbow from so many toothpick “javelin” throws by Adam Gill, a disappointing team score of 2 in water polo-pong for the team representing Jamaica, and a devastating -1 score by co-op Caleb Sutherin due to spilling too much water from his cup during the track and field water race.

As we reflect on our week of Office Olympics, we find that we probably lack the finesse of the pros in Paris. Still, we certainly have the competitive spirit of those elite Olympians—even if our victories are rewarded with nothing more than plastic “gold” medals and bragging rights… which we all know around Choice One are preeeetty important and way better than any cash prize.

Adam Gill (from bathroom): “Schmidty, you wanna bust up a toilet?”
Brian Schmidt (from across the office): “YEP!”

Brian “Schmidty” Schmidt is always up for good times: reviewing plans with vigor, eating (anytime, anything), and, apparently, busting up broken fixtures. So when one of the toilets in our Loveland office needed to be put out of its misery, Brian didn’t hesitate.

We like to take things into our own hands. We have our own popcorn machine. We do our own heavy lifting. We do our own scaring. Heck, at this point, plumbing seems simple (unless you’re Tony, of course). Plus we design sanitary sewer on the daily—those two things are the same, right?

Whether its snacks or sledgehammers, doughnuts or destruction, it’s all in a day’s work for Schmidty—he always manages to turn a messy situation into a memorable moment. Thanks, Schmidty, for flushing another crisis away!

Troy Niese: “We have so many multiple names here we have run out of nicknames.”

Co-op Nick Schmidt is spending his summer semester in our Loveland office and keeps popping up when Loveland folks try to page a Sidney-office Nick (Selhorst, not Sanders), so it was deemed essential to give Nick Schmidt a nickname that wasn’t a “Nick-name.” We already have a Schmidty (who is one of three Brians), so Max (Keeley, not Scherch), randomly suggested “Scooter.”  Sorry Nick Schmidt, you’re forever Scooter from this point on.

With nearly 80 full-time employees at Choice One these days, it’s no surprise that we still have many double, triple, and even quadruple names here. When we first pointed out this phenomenon, 46 percent of Choice One had double/triple names. Now? 46 individuals have repeat first names, equaling nearly 58% of our staff! No wonder we’ve run out of nicknames!

Nick, Troy had a similar problem because we often reference working for the City of Troy. Somehow, Troy the person didn’t end up with a nickname even though he wanted one. So feel lucky, Nick, that at Choice One, you’re never just a name—you’re a unique piece of our ever-growing nickname puzzle.

Adam Siegel: “I want to get this necklace off. But my hands are sweating and cramping.”

Engineering co-op Adam Siegel accompanied Matt Hoying on a fieldwalk and happened across a discarded “gold” costume necklace in the gutter that he couldn’t pass up. Adam slid the necklace over his head but struggled to open the tiny clasp to take it off on the way back to the office. Despite Matt generously sharing the car’s A/C, after ten hand-cramping minutes of sweaty struggle, Adam was close to giving up on the imitation jewelry’s removal.

Apparently, having cramped, tired, and/or sweaty hands is common at Choice One. Indeed, swinging a sledgehammer is sometimes hard on the hands for new employees. Or remember the time Brittany ran Kaye’s head into the wall thanks to failing fingers? Sometimes we even work to avoid using our hands–so much so that going hands-free is desirable, especially when it comes to a “long” walk down the Sidney office’s 11-cartwheel long corridor.

In the end, Adam triumphantly freed himself from the chain’s grip (although he eventually put it back on to parade his “treasure” around the office). Thanks to Adam, we’ve learned that our fieldwalks can turn into treasure hunts, just like our office corridor walks can turn into cartwheels. And with this latest find, our collection of memorable moments just gained another gem—this time, a shiny, “gold” one.

Andy Shuman: “Who would have thought it would be almost too cold in June for ice cream?”

Like Brian Schmidt and chocolate chunk cookies, ice cream and summer just go together—there’s nothing like a double scoop on a hot June day. But this past Monday it was a bit chillier than we would have expected as we enjoyed some celebratory ice cream outside our offices.

The festive occasion was an exciting one: Choice One was named a top five Best Firm to Work for in the nation by the Zweig Group for the 11th year in a row, and in typical engineer/surveyor/landscape architect fashion, we celebrated with fun food and high fives and then eagerly got back to work—so much to do! June is prime design and construction time (not to mention vacation time!), which means we like to keep busy with some of our favorite types of designs: roundabouts, sanitary sewers, and arm pits… er, renderings and concepts.

Regardless of the weather, ice cream is always a welcome reward at Choice One–note that Andy said almost too cold. To be sure, if there’s something tasty to enjoy, neither weather, nor too much refrigerator clutter, nor filing cabinets are going to stop us. Here’s to many more years of sweet success!