Profile
Jim D'Amico
Strategic Staffing Manager
BISSELL Home Care, Inc.
I was completely unfamiliar with West Michigan -- to me "Michigan" meant Detroit, because I heard about Detroit in the news all the time with rampant unemployment, a lot of crime, a place people were fleeing. But when I got to West Michigan, people were very quick to tell me this isn't Detroit and I saw that. I came here from rural Minnesota for a job interview -- I had a whole day to tour around and I fell in love with West Michigan.
My wife Deborah and I are originally from Ohio (Cleveland and Toledo), but before we moved to West Michigan we were working and living in a southwest Minnesota town 70 miles from the nearest expressway. One of the things we loved about Minnesota is how nice everybody is, and we found that people here are every bit as nice. But we missed the diversity of options, like arts, dining and being able to go see live theater and concerts. We also missed the ethnic diversity. Having all these things again was the big draw for me.
We moved to West Michigan in June 2010, and since then we've done a lot of things. Deborah started a wine group that now has over 90 members. We joined Frederik Meijer gardens and go to the summer concerts there. We're kite people and we participated in the Grand Rapids kite festival, which was a lot of fun.
I'm an alumnus of the Second City Training School in Cleveland and have performed standup all over the place, so I really loved attending LaughFest in Grand Rapids last spring. We've been to ArtPrize and loved that, too. We're definitely Foodies, and we're going through a list of restaurants we want to try because there are so many great ones in the area, from upscale restaurants to mom and pops. And we've been to several events at the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts and really love the vibe there.
I urge others not to listen to the bad press Michigan has gotten over the years, it doesn't pertain here. In West Michigan, you can live in the city or you can live in the country, which is pretty unique. I encourage anyone who does move here to get out and meet people. Everyone is really friendly and we've made a lot of great friends.
I grew up in Grand Rapids, MI, and after college, I moved to Chicago for five years where I worked at an ad agency. I think being away for five years and living in a really big city gives you a different perspective on where you grew up. I saw Grand Rapids and West Michigan in a different ligh...
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I grew up in Hemlock, Michigan, a small town on the east side of the state. In 2008, I came to West Michigan to attend Grand Valley State University. The only thing I knew about West Michigan was that I had visited the GVSU campus and had walked around downtown Grand Rapids with my mom to see if...
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My journey to West Michigan began because my husband and I have a son with high-functioning autism and we were not finding the right type of inclusive environment and education for him where we lived in California. One of my friends was from West Michigan and she told us about Zeeland Christia...
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I am a firm believer in deciding what you want and making it happen. As native Michigander but not from this side of the state, I’m fortunate to have made my dream a reality in Grand Rapids. My last semester of college was dedicated to finding a health care public relations job in Gran...
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My boyfriend, Doug, got an internship with the Muskegon Lumberjacks in early 2...
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When my wife, Jenny and I moved here three years ago, we had two young daughters w...
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I was completely unfamiliar with West Michigan -- to me "Michigan" meant Detroit, because I heard about Detroit in the news all the time with rampant unemployment, a lot of crime, a place people were fleeing. But when I got to West Michigan, people were very quick to tell me this isn't...
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I'm originally from Puerto Rico and have been in the United States for the past 23 years. Before coming here, I lived all over -- I went to school in Boston, then moved to New York, and then Texas while I worked in Mexico. I also lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.I came to We...
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I live in Grand Haven on the lakeshore, but grew up on the east side of Detroit. I first lived in West Michigan while attending Grand Valley State University and after graduation, and then I moved back to Detroit for 12 years. But I always had a kind of yearning to get back to West Michigan.&nbs...
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My husband and I are both Michigan natives but we moved to Baltimore, Maryland and then Hawaii for my job with the federal government. After having two children and being so far from family, we really wanted to move back so our kids could get to know their extended family.
Both my husband and I...
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