Success Story
Lynda Sock
Sales & Marketing Manager
Lynda Sock allowed the hands of fate to steer her life. They ended up driving her home. Sock said she wasn’t really even searching for a new job when the sales and marketing manager position opened at the new Norfolk Lodge and Suites.
“I always thought that if something ever opened up in Norfolk, I’d like to come back because the older I get, the more fun it is to come back,” Sock said. Sock, a 1993 graduate of Norfolk Catholic High School, left Norfolk to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to pursue a degree in art.
“About halfway through, I realized it (art) probably wasn’t something I wanted to do,” she said. Sock began changing her mind, partly because of an internship she’d done at Disney World in Florida.
“I loved going down there,” she said. “One of my sisters lived down there. I was visiting her one time while she was planning her wedding, and I knew I wanted to go more toward events planning.” After finishing her degree in art at UNL, Sock moved to Miami, where she worked as a restaurant manager and opened a catering facility for the restaurant.
“In the meantime, my sister and her husband moved to Kansas City,” Sock said. “So, for about six months, I was down there by myself.” Sock said she wouldn’t have minded being in Florida alone if it hadn’t been hurricane season. She decided to take a job in Omaha because it was closer to home.
“I worked for the Holiday Inn Convention Center,” she said. “I went from having a facility that could hold 150 at the most to one that could hold easily 1,200 people in one room.”
Sock liked working in Omaha and said she had fun getting to know the business on a larger scale. But after about a year and a half, she was transferred to another Holiday Inn in Columbia, Mo., to work as the catering director.
“It was a great job, but it was about seven hours from home, which isn’t terrible, but it was inconvenient,” she said. She then moved to Lincoln and worked at a new golf course. After the Lincoln establishment came under new management, Sock began feeling the need to move closer to Norfolk to be near her family. She wasn’t aggressively searching for a different job, but Sock knew she’d seriously consider any legitimate options that became available. Sock expressed her feelings to a former high school classmate, state Sen. Mike Flood.
“I said, you know if Donna (Herrick, the owner of Divots) ever has anything open up at Divots, I’d be very interested,” Sock said. “I hadn’t applied for anything. I left it in fate’s hands; if it was the right thing, then it would happen,” she said. “It all just fell into place that she (Herrick) was opening this.”
Sock said that after she and Herrick talked, accepting the sales and marketing position felt right. “It was the right time for me,” Sock said. “I really didn’t think twice about it.”
Sock said being home is a comfortable feeling. “It’s nice to see familiar faces, and it’s a welcoming community,” she said.
- Story Courtesy of the Norfolk Daily News
