This MN joint is jumpin' folks!

© Copyright 1995 - 2007 U.S. Dive Travel Network.

The Hessburgs back in summer of 1999. :)

WHY THE BIG MOVE TO MINNESOTA?

• John's father, who lives near St. Paul, Minnesota, is the strong spiritual center of our extended Hessburg family.  Back in early 1999, he suffered a heart ailment that has changed his life, & ours, for keeps.  John's family is very close, so this unexpected event galvanized an idea that, as early as winter '97, was starting to coalesce.  The author Thomas Hardy was wrong:  you CAN go home again, when the exigencies of time & circumstance so demand it.  We feel it is high time to blend business & family with a lot more emphasis on family from now on; & that was tough to do from Seattle -- a vantage point 1800 miles west of our family's nerve center.  This is our most important reason, good friends.

• Next, we simply outgrew our office space in West Seattle.  USDT's client volume has nearly doubled each of the last 7 years, due to our increasing exposure in national magazines & on the Internet, & thanks to our many new travel agency associates worldwide.  Operational costs are rising much more steeply on the West Coast than they are in the Midwest.  You get far more value for the office dollar in the Midwest than you do in Seattle.

• Next, our eldest son was ready to enter grade school & we wanted him, & also his younger brother, to experience the best educational system possible during their formative years.  Seattle's public schools were then (sad to say) a bit sub-par for a place as politically progressive & beautiful as the Emerald City.  But school districts in suburban St. Paul are among the best & brightest public school systems in the nation, year after year, per national rating agencies.

• We will always miss the myriad beautiful things about Seattle, one of America's great cities.  We miss the easy access to our favorite Cascade climbing peaks; we miss the Pike Place Market & Pioneer Square; we miss the relaxing twilight strolls down by Alki Beach along Puget Sound; we miss the profusion of excellent Asian & Mediterranean restaurants.  But we DO NOT MISS the 90 straight days of rain & dark clouds that season just before we moved!   And life goes on, folks.  We have been blessed to see that most of our faithful repeat clients have "come along" with us to Minnesota.  Scores of you already have written us some amazing letters & e-mails, or you've telephoned to encourage us in this move.  God bless you for your kindness.  The main measure of success we've always cared about was the friendship of our repeat clients, so these communiques have given us some good-time grins, amigos del mar.

WHY THIS MOVE daily BENEFITS OUR CLIENTS:
With computerized telecommunications & Internet technology as swift, accurate & simple to use as it is today, we realized we could run this successful partnership from a hayloft in Tasmania, if need be.  But a peaceful green suburb of St. Paul, with speedy telecomm connections, friendly neighbors & easy air access to coastal hubs seems a pretty solid choice.  We are committed.  We started this move in June 1999 & completed work on the new home office in October 1999.  After many years of 60-hour work weeks, we plan on spending more time with our kids, parents, & good old friends from the Minnesota tribe of four decades. In short, when you feel better, you work harder, right?! That means working harder for you. Now, how else will this move benefit you, our clients?
 

NEW NETWORKED PARTNERSHIP for the 21st CENTURY:

U.S. Dive Travel's move to Minnesota will bring zero deficits & many benefits to all our clients:

1. Two of the USDT senior partners will remain in Seattle permanently, as will two full-time travel associates + one of our two web techs.  They will run the wholesale air ticketing as usual & spruce up the website work for our partnership.  Much of our air ticketing will be via the newly popular "e-tickets" – electronic ticketing -- so mailing costs will be low & client ticket security will be even higher than before.  We have an efficient computerized database & communications grid already in place, & working well right now.

2. We will keep the familiar "grinning eel" website that has been U.S. Dive Travel's livewire trademark for thousands of page visitors a day since 1995.  This website will function as it always has, based on the Seattle server.

3. We are adding a couple new staffers in the Network to help us handle the growing client volume.

4. We have added two new company partners, two Canadians in Vancouver, BC, who will help us market our growing list of vacation options to the good folks of the Great White North -- eh!

5. We have established an efficient field office on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, with all our database, brochures, files & office gear ready to roll.  This will help us organize our normal Pacific contract tours more cost-efficiently, as we now have a ready-made home office for mounting our South Pacific, Hawaiian & Asian tours.

We are thrilled to be living this new change & we're proud to share these details with the people who always have mattered most to us – YOU FOLKS – our good clients around the world. And this is a world that seems to be getting smaller every day.  You will have the same persons answering your e-mails, the same voices at the other end of the phone line as ever.  The only things that have changed, truly, are phone number, fax number & e-mail address.  We trust that won't bring too jolting a paradigm shift for anyone.

Thank you for your interest in our dive vacation services, & for what we hope will be your continued loyalty to U.S. Dive Travel.  God bless you all & best wishes.

Best fishes too!

>////*>    <*\\\\<

John & Susan Hessburg, Managers
U.S. DIVE TRAVEL Network

St. Paul, MN  /  Seattle, WA  /  College Station, TX  /  Vancouver, BC / Kailua-Oahu, HI
 
E-mail: divetrip@bitstream.net

© Copyright 1995 - 2007 U.S. Dive Travel Network.

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