The New HQ Office

Several months ago, we mentioned that Pine Cove had purchased a new office building in Tyler, Texas, with plans to renovate it to be used as the key office space for our Headquarters. (Remember this?)

It’s hard to believe, but after months of planning, designing, and a lot of construction, the new Pine Cove HQ opened in early May! Everyone who serves and supports our camps in all three regions (East Texas, Central Texas, and South Carolina) works in this office, which is about 45 staffers. 

Fun fact: this amazing giant conference table was handmade by Pine Cove’s maintenance team in East Texas!

The new HQ, also referred to around here as just “The Q,” was intentionally designed to foster collaboration and reflect our Christ-Centered, Others-Focused, and Seriously Fun philosophy. Even the artwork on the walls serves to encourage and remind our staff that we are here to serve others. It’s not about us.  

Our senior leadership team is also excited about our new location in the middle of Tyler! It’s a big change to be “in town,” right next door to multiple small businesses and offices, after having horse pastures for neighbors in the past! Our new HQ office really plugs us into the Tyler community, and we are excited to be here!

To celebrate joining the neighborhood, we hosted an Open House last week, and we invited everyone! We went door-to-door to all the local businesses on our street, sent out emails to friends, created a Facebook invite, and even used carrier pigeons! (Okay, one of those was an exaggeration. You can decide which one.)

We had around 300-400 guests, and whether they came for the hilarious office scavenger hunt (how many giant ceramic ants are crawling up the wall next to the Registration desk?) or the delicious grilled burgers (cooked up by our very own Director of Accounting), we had a blast! The Christian radio station in town, KVNE, broadcasted live from our parking lot, and their truck was right next to the Kona Ice sno-cone truck. Yum!

We’ve been working in our new space for several weeks by now, but we all enjoyed meeting our neighbors (many brought their kids too!), and getting to share the mission of Pine Cove with them. We are continuing to pray for our new office to be a blessing to our camps and to our city!

This picture ended up being our favorite from the whole day, featuring Pine Cove’s founder, Bill McKenzie and his wife, Sharon:

Want to read more about it? The local Tyler paper wrote this article about the event, and we loved hearing their outside perspective.