From Doha to the Dickinson area

Belong Dickinson
1 day ago
7 min read

Making a home and carrying on a maritime legacy.

Meet Sereena Johnson

Mark Fitzpatrick at his office at Champion, Inc.

I was born in the UK. And a funny thing, working for Trident, as we do work for the Navy, is that my father painted yachts, so we traveled a lot around the world. We lived in Germany for 18 years. So, my German is actually better than my English at times. I dream in German at times, so I think that's a unique piece of me.

My parents moved to the Middle East. I stayed back in Germany. I was 17 at the time. I had finished my two-year apprenticeship. The company promised a position to stay with them, and I ended up staying there for ten years before I decided to pack up and follow my family to the Middle East.

I lived in Doha, Qatar, for two years. I taught in an elementary school and taught the kids English.That's when I met my husband. He's from Florence, Wisconsin.

He was working for a company called Aggreko at the time. We met in Doha, fell in love, and we're still together. We have two children.

I followed him back to the U.S. It was kind of a culture shock. I’m not going to lie, I’m still not used to the winters here. He sugarcoated it. It was him. He persuaded me to come back. I had never met his parents before. We had to go through a very lengthy visa process for me to enter the U.S.

He moved back here before I did. I stayed in the Middle East as we worked through the visa process. He looked at houses and kind of got things started for us here. Obviously, we made that decision together when I was here, but he got that process started for us.

Here I am, and yeah, it was definitely worth it. Everybody was super welcoming.

My first real job here was at Walmart, and I kind of bounced around between departments there. I knew on day one when I walked into the training room and saw the HR lady, I said, I want her job one day and eventually I did get her job. That was my first experience working in HR. My work experience had been with children or hospitality, so it has always been with people, but not to the level of an HR leader, or assistant at the time.

Then we had our first daughter. She will be eight this year. Working weekends and holidays at Walmart, it was just becoming very difficult for me. I missed the first Thanksgiving. I met the family after I got off work, but I didn't have the entire holiday, all day, with my daughter. She wasn't even one. I wanted to be there. So I started applying elsewhere. And that's when I found out Trident, Lake Shore at the time, was hiring. I was called for an interview, and weeks later, I had the position of HR Assistant at Lake Shore Systems.

Working at Trident Maritime Systems

I started as the HR assistant, then I moved into the generalist role, and then I moved into the manager role. My title is Director of HR for the Midwest Operations, so that includes all of our local locations. We have the Kingsford office here. We have a warehouse in Norway that's rapidly growing. We have facilities in Ontonagon, Iron River, Rhinelander, and Marinette. Probably three out of the five days I'm on the road between the facilities.

The most rewarding piece for me and my role is the people. You have those days where you come in with your to-do list, and that just changes. You get one phone call, and you're pulled away. You start the day thinking you will be in Kingsford, but then you are pulled into your car to go to Iron River. But I like that, I like the fast pace.

I oversee benefits, workers' comp, and day-to-day people issues. I want to say training and a little bit of recruiting, but I do have a full-time recruiter that reports to me. She's excellent, so I do very little there.

I started as an assistant, and now I’m the director of HR. The opportunity for advancement is typical at Trident. We always start recruiting from within. We like to train in-house. So if you come in as a welder and you find electrical assembly seems really intriguing to you, that is something that we would definitely consider our internal applicants prior to hiring from the outside.

We do work for the Navy. Every active Navy ship out there has a part that we built on deck. For us, our motto is safety first. We want those young men and women who are out there at sea to be safe. So it's very, very important work that we do. And I can tell you, every one of our employees understands that, and they always put safety and quality first to ensure that these young men and women are safe.

Living in the Dickinson area

It was fall when I moved here, so it was very pretty. Beautiful colors. But then the winter came and the snow. I think that was really the big thing, the change in weather. I was used to some snow in Germany and colder temperatures, but not to this extent. I knew it wouldn't be as hot as the Middle East, but… A little more input from my husband would have been nice, but I do not regret moving here.

The people in general are very friendly here. Being in the Middle East for two years, the culture is just completely different. It was very refreshing to come back and be around Western culture.

The school systems here are amazing. I hear others speak of how wonderful the school systems are around here. Our oldest daughter loves school. After school, she goes to the YMCA, which is great because her younger sister goes to Little Sparks Day Care at the Y.

The key thing for me, and the first thing that I identified, is the security of the school. It's huge. You have a police officer there every day at the entrance. Nobody can access the building without speaking to somebody in the office. You have to ring the bell to enter. I hadn't seen that before. The way that the school communicates with the parents is a big thing for me. They welcome you, regardless of the situation or any issues that may arise. Communication is really good.

Mount Olive Lutheran Church

My family and I go to church on Sundays. Our church is the Mount Olive Lutheran Church, and I teach Sunday school for the littles. So my Saturday consists of prepping for that.

A woman sits at a table with three children drawing. The scene is indoors, with colored markers and paper on a yellow table, creating a focused and educational atmosphere.

I found it actually, after I started work at Lake Shore. Rachel, one of my coworkers, invited me to come join her for one of the event dinners that they had there. I love Rachel, so I agreed to go with it. I didn't know what to expect, but I just fell in love with everybody there—just the way they made me feel.

They welcomed me even though I wasn't a member of the church, and I really hadn't gone to church a whole lot in my past. I'm so glad that she invited me. I brought my husband a couple of weeks after I said, you've got to come with me and let's see what this is all about on a Sunday, and actually go to one of the services.

A group of five people posing indoors, including a woman, a man in a suit, a man in a jacket, a baby, and a child. Wooden background.

We fell in love with the pastor. We have since switched pastors, and our new pastor is just as wonderful. I was a little hesitant about that, you know, change. It's like, do we need to switch churches? But no, absolutely not. They were both wonderful. And yeah, we try to go religiously every Sunday.

The things that the kids say, the questions that they ask. It's fun. And knowing that we're guiding them in faith, just… it's an accomplishment.

What should someone who is considering the Dickinson area know about our community?

Many, many factors, and we touched on a few of them.

The school systems, if you have children, of course, are huge—the people, just the friendliness, the open arms, the help, the support.

I think the mix of organizations that we have here. There are a lot of opportunities here, and it's a beautiful area. It depends on the weather, but there's a lot of stuff you can do in the winter as well. I would say dress warm, but I keep going back to the snow. I have nothing else poor to say. So, really, if you can handle the snow, this is the place to be.

It's constantly growing. The community events that you have during the summer. You have the ItalianFest, then OktoberFest, and the opportunity to meet new people, that's definitely there. Nobody's shy to shake your hand and say, Welcome to the community.

Favorite family activities

We like to drive to Marquette. I think Marquette's beautiful, not as beautiful as here, but we like to drive to Marquette just for the day. I like to shop with my girls. We always do that without my husband. We have the church, of course. And then just to community events that we like to join here locally, together as a family.

My older daughter plays soccer; this will be her second year. She's excited. Last year was more about picking flowers out in the field. This year will hopefully be more about chasing the ball.

I like to shop at Worn Clothing Exchange. Maurices is huge. My daughter loves the Shoe Depot. She's a shoe freak.

They have so many little boutiques in downtown Iron Mountain. It's constantly growing. You turn a corner, and I didn't know that store was there. Well, yeah, they opened up yesterday. That's grown significantly since I first moved here. That was really nowhere to shop. We had to drive to Green Bay, and now, in the 11 years that I've been here, I've seen downtown grow significantly.

There's a lot of variety, whether it be the people, the things to do, or the scenery.