Jenai May

We LOVE our employees! Another way we’ll be celebrating our 50th birthday this year is to share pictures past and present, tell the stories of, and highlight the incredible staff that we have working here at Paddington Station.

First up is this fabulous woman who has been an owner of the store since 1993 – Pam Hammond!

1. Where did you grow up?
   I spent the first part of my life in Anaheim, California about a mile away from DisneyLand and was actually born the same year that it opened! When I was 10, my parents moved to Palos Verdes and it was such an amazing, beautiful place to grow up.
2. What is something about you that would surprise people?
   I love the outdoors and am an avid backpacker and camper. I’m happiest in the woods!
3. What is the best meal you ever had?
   It was at my wedding with Rick in May of 2014 at the Elks Lodge! We hired Cindy Bernard as the caterer and she made a Greek feast for us. It was the most fun wedding spread and such a joyous day and I have so many fond memories of it!
4. What is your favorite time of year?
   I love Christmas and working in retail at Christmas so much, despite the grueling hours and endless to-do lists. There’s just something about Christmas magic and making everybody joyful! It’s really nice to serve people during that time of year.
5. Where is your favorite spot in Ashland?
   Besides Paddington Station?! I would say the surrounding woods, I love walking on the trail in Lithia Park along the creek. I really appreciate getting away from the hubbub of life and how close by it is.
6. What are some of your hobbies?
   I like to do lots of stuff! I’m a musician and when I was in high school, I thought I wanted to be a professional flute player. I just think music has always taught me that with hard work, you can get to a desired end result. I took some time off when my kids were growing up, but now I love playing piccolo with the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band. I also really enjoy entertaining in my home.



7. Tell me about your favorite pet you’ve ever had.
   I got my first dog when I was 10, a little black poodle who was the runt of the litter. Her name was Licorice and I had her for 18 years. She was always glued to me and was so scrappy!
8. Who has been the most influential person in your life?
   My high school band director, Warren Balfour. He was really good at bringing out the best in our ragtag group of musicians and we always held our own against the larger schools at competitions!
9. What is your favorite thing about working at Paddington Station?
   My staff. I feel so blessed to have a core group of people who enjoy being here and love to work together to get to the end result.
10. Anything else you’d like to add?
    I just hope that 100 years from now, this store will still be here serving the community!

Happy Meet Us Monday, everyone! Today we are introducing the woman behind much of the fashion buying for the Paddington Station family of stores, Kelly Hammond! Kelly is a Co-Owner, Vice President of the company, and works in product management.

Where did you grow up?
I like to say I’m an Oregon girl, but I was born in Burbank, California and we moved up here when I was 5. The joke was always that I was born across the street from the Disney studios! One of my earliest memories is from when we moved and my mom gave me Retail Magic Barbie. She told me we were opening this store and I was so excited!

What is something about you that would surprise people?
My dad is such a film snob, and it might surprise people that I’ve seen pretty much every black and white movie and all of the AFI Top 100 movies. My dream job when I was a kid was to be the Turner Classic Movie host! It’s hard to choose a favorite old movie, but currently one of my favorites is The Philadelphia Story because my daughter Dinah gets her name from it.

What is the best meal you ever had?
My family went to Italy when I was 22 and we went on a bus tour that included this absolutely incredible food and wine. Another family on the tour were fighting the entire time and didn’t eat their meals, so we got to eat theirs in addition to ours! I remember how fun it was to drink wine with my parents in the middle of the day and we all had a blast together.

What is your favorite time of year?
I’m excited for Fall, mostly for fashion reasons. I love a nice plaid blazer or an oversized boxy jacket, and everyone jokes, “Oh Kelly, your jackets are here!” This year, we have these amazing Pendleton jackets coming to the store and I can’t wait for them to arrive.

Where is your favorite spot in Ashland?
I live by Kestrel Park and there’s a secret spot that Dinah, Riley, and I found. It’s right on the creek and there’s an old bench and being there is like entering another world! It’s so beautiful and such a special hidden spot for us.

What are some of your hobbies?
I’m a singer! I really enjoy the “park and bark”, where I just stand there and perform. I love musical theatre, classical, and singing Fiona Apple with my record player at home.

Tell me about your favorite pet you’ve ever had.
Toby was my dog growing up and she was the best dog ever. She was a Blue Heeler but didn’t like going outside, acting more like a Siamese cat sitting there and cuddling me by my side. I remember that she smelled like Fritos! The best part about her was how she loved me… it’s just so wonderful having an animal that you know is yours.

Who has been the most influential person in your life?
My parents absolutely; I am 50% my mom and 50% my dad. My mom is really driven and incredibly book smart and she taught me how to be assertive and my own person. My dad is such an intellectual and marches to the beat of his own drum, but I think I benefitted from having the yin and the yang of both of them as influences in my life.

What is a mantra you like to live by?
It’s a quote from a poem called The Laughing Heart, by Charles Bukowski. “You are marvelous / The gods await to delight in you.” I believe in manifestation and that mantra really embodies that.

What is your favorite thing about working at Paddington Station?
On a literal note, I love the fashion. I grew up reading Vogue magazine at the same time as the Little Golden books. Being able to pursue something I’m genuinely passionate about alongside my family is so special. I love working with my mom and the friends along the way that I’ve made. Additionally, the ability to be a part of the institutional memory of this town is just wonderful!

For our latest Meet Us Monday post, we sat down with Joe Collins, who has been with Paddington Station for seventeen years! As General Manager and Co-Owner, Joe also provides tech support and other important administrative tasks behind the scenes.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in New Jersey in a little town called Budd Lake. Right before I started high school, we moved to Hawaii, on the Big Island. My parents wanted to move us somewhere new as the majority of my family had been born, grew up, and stayed in the same town their whole lives. I met the woman who is now my wife in Hawaii and followed her to Ashland when she went to SOU.

What is something about you that would surprise people?
I play ice hockey at a rink in Medford! We’ve had some organized leagues, but for now it’s more of a fun pick-up sort of thing and I’ll play any position but goalie. I started playing roller hockey when I moved to Hawaii.

What is the best meal you ever had?
We recently moved to a nice house in Ashland and have a really great kitchen and made our first Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family there. Everything came out so well! We’re vegan so we made tofu-rkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and sweet potato casserole with a ton of marshmallows. We tried to broil it with our fancy oven to brown the marshmallows and the whole thing lit on fire, so it was definitely the exclamation point on the meal!

What is your favorite time of year?
I would say Fall, just because I’m not a big fan of the heat and it’s nice when it cools down. I also like the trees changing and sending the kids back to school!

Where is your favorite spot in Ashland?
I would have to say my house! It’s right across from the Oredson-Todd trail system and is in a nice quiet neighborhood. We have a bunch of housemates and people are always coming over, so it’s a bit of a social hub for our friends.

What are some of your hobbies?
Besides ice hockey, we love to go rollerblading around and play some video games on occasion. I really enjoy hanging out with my kids and cooking too!

Tell me about your favorite pet you’ve ever had.
We had a really cool dog when we first moved here, named Indiana. My wife rescued him for me for my birthday and he was a mutt with lots of energy. He loved to play fetch and was a very good boy.

Who has been the most influential person in your life?
My wife, Sansa. We’ve been together almost twenty-three years and she’s actually the reason I’m here working at Paddington! She’s shown me how to be a good parent and role model for our kids. She has also always encouraged me to make better choices for my health and be a better person.

What is a mantra you like to live by?
“Perfect is the enemy of good.” I tend to try and do things a little too elaborately and I have to remember that sometimes you just need to do the thing. Even if you only do it 85% of the way, that’s good enough.

What is your favorite thing about working at Paddington Station?
There’s a good variety from day to day. You don’t really know what’s going to be happening or who you’re going to be seeing or what you’re going to be doing and that makes it exciting. Some days go by smoothly and quickly and other days take a while to get through, but I always love it when there’s a lot of customers in the store with their great energy.