In sports, getting inducted into the Hall of Fame is the absolute highest honor that any athlete could achieve. Now at Pro Athlete, we can say the same thing. Being inducted into the Pro Athlete Hall of Fame is the absolute highest honor that anyone associated with Pro Athlete could achieve.

For the past year we have been dedicating time and resources to better capture our history in different ways. We’ve hunted down old models of significant bats to tell a story, we’ve hired a Memory Officer who is in charge of capturing photos and videos for us each day, and we even went so far as to build a Hall of Fame. Included in the Hall of Fame is a detailed company timeline and an area dedicated to those who have made significant contributions to Pro Athlete over the years.

Our inaugural class consisted of thirteen amazing individuals from the original founders to sales reps and vendors that never actually worked here to our business coaches and to former employees. We honored this outstanding group of people with a ceremony on Saturday December 10th at our office. We conducted a ceremony where we shared stories about each inductee and then allowed them some time to speak about the honor they were receiving.

We really wanted the ceremony to key on how passionate and dedicated these thirteen people were, and still are to Pro Athlete. So we set out to find someone who could emcee our event that knew a little something about passion and energy. There was one obvious choice in Kansas City for this job. Enter Fox Sports Kansas City announcer Rex Hudler. Did he ever knock it out of the park. He was a fan favorite and added that energy that the inductees and the ceremony deserved. We want to thank Rex for volunteering to do this for us.

The day concluded with all Pro Athlete employees, alumni, and the Hall of Fame inductees heading downtown for our annual Holiday Party. This year the great folks at No Other Pub took care of us. All in all, it was an amazing day and really fun to look back at how much those thirteen individuals have contributed to our business.

Around here, we call our employees Pros, and we have a saying “Once a Pro, Always a Pro.” We strongly believe that each person that comes here to work is a friend for life whether they work here forever or leave to pursue another endeavor.  A lot of companies might be upset if someone leaves to pursue a dream, but we strongly support that and will do our best to help that person succeed. We also encourage employees to use us as a springboard if they want. Don’t we owe that to our employees who do so much for us? Why would you ever hold someone back from trying to get where they want to go? We don’t do that here, and this weekend was a reminder that whether you are here your whole life or you come and then go on to do other things, that your impact will always be felt.

Now, each day that you walk through our hallways, you will be reminded of the hard work of those enshrined in our Hall of Fame. And those who are so fortunate to be inducted can always say they were an integral part of something very special. #HOF2016