Page Perkinson

Name: Page Perkinson 

Summers as a Camper: 5 years

Years as a Staff Member/Positions held: 5 years

• 2 as JC, 1 as SIC, 1 as Seafarer Sailing UA, 1 as Sea Gull Sailing UA 

Current Profession: Global Sr. Brand Manager at BIC – I’m in charge all of the advertising and marketing for our stationary products.

Can you provide a brief overview of your job responsibilities? 

At BIC, our organization is divided into three categories which we call “Blade Excellence” (shaving/personal care), “Flame for Life” (lighters) and “Human Expression” (all writing and creative stationery products). I’m in charge of creating global advertising campaigns for all of Human Expression, which is divided into standard writing tools and our creative kids’ products (our kids’ products are like Crayola and are very popular in Europe, South America, Africa and Australia). 

My job is to work with all of the different regions (aka Continents) to develop ad campaigns for all of our various products. To create these campaigns, it is really important to understand the different cultures, consumer insights and product needs, which are very different across the world. We recently just launched a new 4 Color pen campaign in Europe, which will be live in the US, South America and Australia in 2024 - it was BIC’s first ever global campaign. 

Do you have any career advice for members of our Camp community? 

Try out as many different jobs as you can as early in your life as possible. Be it through internships or even testing out a few different careers when you enter the workforce, don’t feel like you have to be fully committed to something right out of college. Who you are as a person, your interests, the things that motivate you in life, family, friends, geographic location, may and almost always will evolve and change throughout your life. Too much pressure is being put on kids to figure out what they want to do with their lives when they are still just kids. 

What do you believe have been some of your greatest personal and professional accomplishments? Is there a goal toward which you are currently working? 

When I was working at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York City in 2018, every employee would be assigned to “accounts.” My account was Head & Shoulders. I got a chance to work with celebrities like Sofia Vergara, Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers and Gus Kenworthy - US Winter Olympic skier. While all of that was fun, my proudest and most rewarding moment was getting a chance to work on a piece of non-profit business which was for the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS). NDSS had an ambitious goal of getting laws changed that were holding those with Down syndrome back from living full lives. The laws are complicated but what would motivate lawmakers to change these laws would be to showcase what those with Down syndrome are truly capable of. Our team’s idea (emphasis on team) was to create a pop-up restaurant in Washington D.C. where we invited congress people, senators and business leaders to attend the dinner, without them knowing what the dinner was really about. When they arrived, they saw that everyone from the host, to waiters, bartenders, musicians and chefs were all those with Down syndrome. The night was a huge success with the restaurant being run flawlessly. 

Two months later, a bill was passed to change one of these laws. Selling shampoo felt a little different after that.

How do the values or skills you learned at Camp show up in your everyday work and/or personal life? 

As a husband and father, you basically are a camp counselor. You’ve got to make sure that your kids are happy and having fun, while also developing them to be a person of good character. I’m also still skillful with my letter writing skills to my wife. In the workplace, having passion, enthusiasm and positive energy are character traits that I really developed as a counselor and help me to this day. As a leader, you are there to motivate those around you and to create an enjoyable environment that helps people have fun and do good work. 

Is there a person or a situation that had a huge influence on you while you were at Camp? How and why did they/it impact you? 

Both came in my first year as a counselor (2004). The first story is about Pete Morasca and David McPhail (Sailing Master). I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the best sailor when I started on sailing staff but knew that was the staff that I wanted to be on. My first or second week, I got assigned to a lightning for a weekend and had a Senior Counselor helping me. I go to dock the lightning and ended up sliding in between two docked lightnings, slamming into the dock and ripping most of the jib in half. I thought I was done but Pete came over and said in his duck-like voice, “go back out.” I kept going back and out, each time getting a little better with the docking and Pete was there almost each time saying “better, again.” I worked really hard in all my rotation assignments during Starter Camp and First Session, continuing to practice on a Lightning, and by second session, to my surprise, I got assigned to be a Lightning trainer. This had such a huge impact. It first taught me to have a hard work ethic. If you work hard and keep trying, even if you’re not the best, it will eventually pay off and you’ll be rewarded. It also taught me to believe in people. It’s not always pretty when you first start at something but if you believe in someone, show your support and give them a chance, you could change their life forever. If I was sent in that day and was never given another chance on a Lightning, I may not have come back to Camp the following year. 

The second is about Mead Stone. Mead was my Head Counselor and had the most positive and enthusiastic energy that I have ever seen from someone. Even if something was bad or not easy to say, he had such a positive way of spinning it so that you could never feel disappointed afterwards…just motivated to do better. Aspiring to be like that is something I’m still trying to do. Mead won the Character Counts award that year. 

Favorite Camp meal: Fried chicken Sunday 

Favorite mess hall entry song: Henry playing the Charlie Brown theme song.

All-time favorite skit memory: Basically any skit from my time as a sailing UA at Camp Seafarer - being Captain Broadway will be a lifetime highlight. 

Favorite special event at Camp: Seeing the girls at Camp Seafarer walk from the mess hall with their candles during Candlelight on the last night. 

Devotion you best remember from Camp: It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. 

What three words best describe you? Enthusiastic, Charismatic, Goof 

What would you eat if you could only have one food for the rest of your life? Eastern NC BBQ