Thirty years before Chris Zimmerman would become CEO of the St. Louis Blues’ business department, he was establishing a career in advertising in Ridgefield, Conn. He and his wife, Emily, had built a house from the ground up, in which they were planning to raise their then-3-year-old daughter, Katie, and newborn son, Ted.
“We literally could imagine our kids going to Ridgefield High,” Zimmerman remembers. “But they didn’t even get to preschool there.”
In February 1995, Zimmerman was offered a job with Nike in Portland, Ore., and the family changed coasts and started a journey in sports that’s last ever since.
There would be more stops along the way: Exeter, N.H., where Zimmerman worked for Bauer; Vancouver, with the Canucks; briefly back to New Hampshire; then Los Angeles with Easton Sports.
It was one thing for Zimmerman to relocate.
“Your focus, your connections, your daily life is defined,” he says.
But for spouses and family, it’s incredibly hard.
“You moved and it was like, ‘OK, we’re staying in a Residence Inn for six months,’” Katie, now 32, recalls.
After doing the drill five times, Zimmerman concluded that to get truly integrated into a new community, it takes at least three years.
Mom, though, always made the transition smoother.
“She was so great…
