Meet Eric, Our Delightfully (not) Dull Director

Eric Emerson, our enthusiastic new director and a fresh transplant from Charleston, aspires to be boring. Deeply, irrevocably boring. If you argue the point, he will vehemently insist that he is, in fact, dreadfully dull.

He loves his family, he loves his job, he loves his football team (U. Alabama), and he loves history. The Simpsons show makes him laugh. He doesn’t collect anything, calls himself a minimalist, claims to have no hobbies, and stands at a loss if you ask him his favorites. He goes fishing just often enough to barely mention it. He doesn’t have cable. If you suggest that he turn the beautiful courtyard outside into a petting zoo to generate additional revenue for the department, or perhaps put llamas on the premises, he will suggest goats would carry smaller start-up costs.

Still, Eric fails at boring, and that’s ok. There’s probably a trophy for that, even.

Eric has lived in Tuscaloosa, Charlotte, Asheville, Baltimore, Columbus (GA), and Kentucky (in his youth), but he swears the sun rises and sets in Charleston - although he concedes it does set, occasionally, in Columbia. He appreciates southern manners and polite drivers, and has been known to wear seersucker suits. (Don’t honk at him. Ever.)

He speaks in military acronyms with ease, and after his time in the army, Eric went to Charlotte for a stint in management at a bakery. Four years later he took his appreciation of the corporate ladder – and crackers - and went back to grad school for history, likely subsisting on the very same crackers he’d helped to make.

Now, Eric hates the disappointment he gets when house-hunting reveals the potential for bad neighbors. His office décor consists of 1940’s architectural drawings from various cities, and a few family photos. He likes jazz, not just the artists everyone likes, but musicians that have a take-em-or-leave-em appeal, like Chet Baker. He also listens to 70’s rock. His tastes run towards mid-century modern architecture, and he likes to reflect on the optimism and promise of the Long Decade of post-WWII America. It’s a wistful sort of reflection, the kind that ends with “and the economy was so strong.”

So here’s a warm welcome for Eric Emerson, our minimalist, professional new face of the agency. Like beauty, local pride, and an appreciation for bow ties, boring is in the eye of the beholder.