The Women of The Equiery Dear Readers:


Although there is a change in leadership, the heart and soul of T e Equiery will remain the same. T e women you’ve come to know and love, who are the core of the publication, are here to serve you. T ese horsewomen are diverse in talents and personalities, each one’s talents and personality make her uniquely good at her particular job.


With such divergent and dynamic personalities will come inevitable tensions, and while frustrating for all at the moment, it is a creative tension that has ultimately built a better Equiery and an outstanding collection of multi-media products – and I could not be more proud of the women, individually and as a team. Every personality makes a better team. I am so privileged to have had these women on my team, and I know and trust that they will continue to serve our readers, advertisers and community well. You know them when you call in, when you email or Facebook us, but before I go, I would like you to know a little bit more about who they


really are, their roles within the team, and why I admire each so very much. - Crystal Brumme Pickett, Retiring Publisher/Editor


p.s. Many thanks to photographer and friend Isabel Kurek, who not only lent her fabulous talents to this article, but has contributed so much to our pages over the last twenty years.


Since 2009: Emily Nessel


Customer Service/Digital Marketing Manager T e Equiery has long hosted summer interns,


Since 2006: Carolyn Del Grosso from college,


high school–even the occasional middle schooler. Of course, one always hopes that maybe one will stick, maybe one of the really good ones will become part of the team. Mostly, we watch them move on, usually outside and beyond the horse world. Nevertheless, we hope we will fi nd that diamond in the rough that suits us–and we her (or him). Well, Emily found us. Emily Stangroom was home for the summer from Centenary College


in New Jersey. Her mom suggested she reach out to us, which she did. Much to our surprise, she made the long trek from Bel Air (north east of Baltimore) to Lisbon (west of Baltimore) almost every day. Wow. T en she came back the next summer, while she was looking for her “real job”! While she was looking for her “real job,” we just kept throwing odds and ends at her…and she just kept batting away, hitting and scoring each time. She would cheerfully embrace it, learn it, master it, and click on, adding to her growing repertoire of skills. Finally, it occurred to us, maybe this was meant to be her “real job!” She seemed to think so too, and so in March of 2011, Emily offi cially became an EQer! With her natural internal metronome and her propensity for check- ing tasks off of lists, Emily has become the quiet heartbeat of the offi ce, working with Katherine Rizzo to ensure the entire offi ce stays on task, processing art and classifi eds, and adroitly and good-naturedly handling whatever customer service or technical issues that arise. Of course, she could not keep up that commute. We found her and her


retired T oroughbred, “I’m a PickPocket,” a home on a local farm. Emily had acquired Pocket in 2002 when she was in the eighth grade; together they were involved with the Easy Riders 4-H Club in Harford County. T e pair did some local hunter shows, took lessons, did a lot of trail riding and just “hung out and had fun!” Pocket passed away in the winter of 2014. Meanwhile, Emily Stangroom became Emily Nessel, and husband


Chuck moved onto the farm with her. Whenever she can, Emily ventures into Washington D.C. or Baltimore City to indulge her passion for Broad- way musicals (which she shares with this soon-to-be retired publisher). I am grateful for Emily’s even temperament that serves as a ballast to help keep our Equiery ship on a steady keel through the ebbs and tides, crests and troughs of the production cycle, enabling us to ensure fulfi llment of all the multi-media marketing aspects of our clients contracts even after the book as gone to press and the staff is exhausted. Emily is one of the most consis- tently good-natured, pragmatic and ethical women I have ever known, and it has been a pleasure watching her quietly blossom at T e Equiery. 16 | THE EQUIERY | JANUARY 2018


Controller/Bookkeeper/Customer Service Carolyn Del Grosso is, without a doubt, the Mary- land horse industry’s “Steady Eddie,” the most reliable and dependable horse person you will ever meet.


Up every


morning at 4 a.m., she does the barn chores, trains horses, teaches lessons, arrives at T e Equiery no later than 1 p.m., works until dusk, returns to the barn for night chores. Rinse, repeat. In 2006, after over 20 years with County Saddlery, Carolyn decided she


was ready for a change of venue. She fi rst approached T e Equiery to fi nd out if we knew of anyone who was hiring. Impressed with her degree in accounting, her twenty years of actual bookkeeping creds, her warm and familiar personality, as well as her obvious disinclination to job-hop, I created a position for her at T e Equiery! Everyone in dressage knows Carolyn as the stalwart director on the


Board of the Potomac Valley Dressage Association, which she has faith- fully served for 30 years. Carolyn grew up in Montgomery County rid- ing with Seneca Valley Pony Club, foxchasing and competing in every discipline, including eventing, jumpers and show hunters. But dressage was her natural calling, clicking with her steady, even workmanlike tem- perament. T at steady, even temperament imbues everything she does, and when she joined T e Equiery team in 2006, she easily blended in with the team. Carolyn had been part of T e Equiery long before she became a staff er, as she was one of our fi rst stallion clients, back in 1992, when the local and national sport horse breeding industry was rocking and annual stal- lion issues were thick encyclopedias of advertising (no internet then!). Her Hanoverian stallion Arklicht, her Kris, her love, arrived from Ger- many on Christmas Eve 1984, and naturally he became “Kris Kringle.” Together, the two of them have competed through Grand Prix. Carolyn – and we – lost Kris this year. T e consummate gentleman, may he rest in peace. Fate works in mysterious ways. It was the go-go 2000s and T e Equiery was growing exponentially. I could no longer handle the bookkeeping myself, but I did not have the time to fi nd a bookkeeper. In walked Caro- lyn, wanting to know if we knew of anyone looking for a bookkeeper. I am grateful to Gene Freeze for not stealing her back! One of the warm- est women I have known, former Equiery associate publisher LuAnne Levens referred to her as “warm pudding.” Honest, kind, unfl appable and easy-going, Carolyn just blended right into T e Equiery, unfazed by the monthly high/low crazy culture.


800-244-9580 | www.equiery.com


Isabel J. Kurek


Isabel J. Kurek


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