Attorney
Dubuque, Iowa, 52001
My parents are Bill and Sharon Hamel of Dubuque, Iowa. I am the oldest of their six children. My parents have been tremendous role models for me. For most of my life, Dad worked full time as a foreman at the Dubuque Packing Company and its successors, and also worked a second full-time job running his own landscaping and snow removal business. I know there were many times during the spring and summer when he only got a couple hours of sleep a night. Sometimes in the winter he didn’t get to sleep at all.
Meanwhile, Mom was raising six children that were born over the course of nine years. Mom made sure that all of us kids had chores and duties. However, her cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, nursing, educating and general child-rearing never stopped. In her “spare” time she handled all of the billing and paperwork for the landscaping business. I have certainly worked hard in my life, but I know I have never worked as hard as my parents. Growing up my brothers and I always worked in Dad’s landscaping and snow removal business. We did a lot of residential sodding, and the shapes of the houses, lot lines and sidewalks required a lot of trimming.
Occasionally we got a job with an easy shape like a football field. A football field requires 6,000 square yards of sod including the end zones. That is five or six semi loads of sod, and I don’t remember how many individual pallets of sod. Laying 6,000 square yards of sod in a single day so you can start watering it was a challenge, but also very satisfying. You started the day with a plot of dirt, and at the end of the day you had a football field.
I also had a second job delivering auto parts for a few years. The delivery job gave me a good opportunity to meet and learn how to get along with a wide variety of people. I worked for four years at Kmart while I was going to college.
I spent about half of my time unloading delivery trucks and stocking shelves. I sold appliances the other half of my time. Back in those years there were many fewer shopping options, and Kmart was always extremely busy. I learned a lot about customer service in my years at Kmart.
