Hello everyone, my name is Michael Golt Jr and I am honored I get to share my story with you today. As many of your already know, I am a part of the H5H Ops Support Team, working as a Brand Ambassador in our Marketing Department. A little about myself to start. I am an Eagle Scout, a life-long Eagles fan, and was born on 10/17/91 in Dover, DE. Although I was born in Dover, I spent my childhood as an only child living with my mom and, at the time, my step father in the small town of Hartly, DE. I lived with my mom after my parents got divorced when I was still an infant, and my dad moved states away. He later settled down in Baltimore when I was about ten and remarried. Growing up, my mom and step dad, Jason were my biggest influences. They made sure I never wanted for anything I truly needed, encouraged me to challenge myself to grow, and really kept me busy with different activities year-round. I rarely had down time because I was involved in scouts, little league, soccer, wrestling, and everything else I managed to find time for. On the rare occasion I had a free weekend, there was usually some side job I assisted Jason with. We did practically everything; reapplying carpets, installing garage doors, gutting houses, building sheds, paving drive ways, snow removal, laying fences, feeding horses, hauling junk, and I could go on and on. So many things seem like common sense to me now, that I only learned because of working those odd jobs with him. I also always felt supported and encouraged by them. It was by their example I learned to manage a tight schedule and strive to always better myself. My family grew while I was in high school, I went from being an only child to having 3 half sisters. First my dad and step mom Stacey, had their two daughters Maddie and Maeghan, then my mom and Jason had their daughter Cheyenne. As much as I had always wanted siblings, it was an adjustment to get 3 sisters with such an age difference.
While in high school, I had several goals for myself that I wanted to accomplish; I wanted to make state’s in wrestling, obtain the rank of Eagle Scout, travel to another country, and get into college. I managed accomplishing all four of these goals. Going into my senior year I had the chance to travel to China as a Student Ambassador for the United States with a program called People to People. I spent 2 ½ weeks exploring China’s biggest cities with 20 other student ambassadors. This was no small feat. I had to raise a lot of money for the trip. I hosted spaghetti dinners at my family’s church, sold candy bars after practices, and searched for every scholarship opportunity I could find. Then, 3 months before the group was scheduled to leave, I had only managed to raise 1/3 of the total needed, I received an invitation to the Delaware chapter of People to People’s next meeting. At this meeting, I found out I was the lucky recipient of their biggest scholarship covering half the cost of the entire trip. It was the difference between being able to take part in this once in a life time experience and staying home after months of hard work. Then, shortly after my return from China, I got word that I was accepted to the only college I wanted to go to and wrestle for, York College of Pennsylvania. With that news I began to focus on creating and implementing my Eagle Scout project. After hearing the Delaware Chapter of People to People were using connections at the Dover Air Force Base to hold a massive book drive to help educate children in developing countries, I was able partner with the organization that had just helped me travel to China to hold my own book drive in connection with theirs as my Eagle Scout project. After collecting books for almost a year, raising funds to afford shipping the books, and spending days finding which books met the criteria to get shipped to developing countries, I ended up sending over 1500 books overseas. It was great to help others in need, help support People to People’s efforts while becoming an Eagle Scout. Achieving the rank of Eagle Scout had not been easy, my troop had struggled to survive. After becoming an Eagle Scout my troop was disbanded, and the only remaining scout had to join a new troop. I experienced similar issues with my school’s wrestling team. By my senior year, however, Dover’s wrestling team was barely filling each weight class. I was the only returning senior on the wrestling team, and only one of four returning wrestlers. I began wrestling when I was four and continued to do so when I started college, I respect the discipline, self-sacrifice, and dedication it takes. I entered conference with a 9-5 conference record and made states for the second time. I didn’t manage to win at states, but, even after states I can say I was never pinned my senior year.
I then entered college with one goal in mind, get my degree in four years. I had known from a young age that I wanted to be the first in my family to go away for college right out of high school. I also planned to wrestle for York (their wrestling program was a large factor for why I choose York), but after suffering back to back concussions in my first two months, I reconsidered. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do exactly, but my major showed me several avenues sports had to offer. During my time at York, I met my wife, Julie, even though she didn’t attend York. We started dating shortly before I graduated in 2013. The excitement of graduation was short lived once it set in that I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. I continued to search for a job and found some fun opportunities but nothing that struck me as a career. It ended up being a huge wake up call, I had finally succeeded in a lifelong goal, but now I have to pay for it. I began struggling with the burden of my student loans. I did the only thing I could which was work as hard as possible to get ahead of the massive amount of loans I had to repay.
This brings me to the year leading up to starting my journey with H5H. I worked multiple seasonal jobs, often with multiple seasons over lapping. The year leading up to applying at H5H I had seven jobs, and never held less than three at a time. Not only was I juggling jobs, but I was juggling living arrangements in different states, and visiting Julie in New Jersey. The year started with finishing up a season with the Eagles as a Game Day Merchandise Supervisor, and free lancing as a sports photographer for Lifetouch. Then once MLB season started, I was off to stay at my Dad’s in Baltimore, while I worked at Camden Yards as a Suite Supervisor when the Orioles were in town. When they were away, I drove back to Hartly to stay with my mom, I worked at Wild Quail Country Club as the Head Life Guard & Pool Operator. If the Oriole’s last home game was Friday night, I would drive back to Delaware at 2am that night, to wake up for a life guard shift at 9am in Hartly. When there was time, I would also pick random shifts selling sport necklaces through a contact I had at the Ripken Experience in Aberdeen. Once baseball season ended, I returned to my mom’s while I worked at Central Middle School as an Assistant Wrestling Coach and commuted to Philly for another season on football. I also tried out working night shifts at Amazon during the holiday season. Overall, it was not a great experience. I would never go back, but I finished the holiday season. At this point, you might be asking, “why wouldn’t you look for one more stable job?, and to that I’d say I was asking myself the same thing. With all these jobs, and living for free with my parents, I was still barely making ends meet. Finding time to research potential jobs became a challenge, and even when I found great jobs that interested me, it was too far to commute and I couldn’t afford living arrangements in the area. I felt the lowest I think I ever have when I finally finished working at Amazon. I felt stuck, and I felt exhausted with nothing to show from it. It was time for a change. I decided to cut out all the random jobs. It was important that I freed up time to continue my job search, and also opened up a lot of time I could offer other employers. At the start of 2016, I committed to returning to only two jobs. I would return to the Orioles and the Eagles. These two made the most sense because they had the biggest effect on my career, and I could plan trips to see Julie around their schedules.
That’s when I decided to take a fresh look at Dover’s job market. I’ve always looked for companies that I could relate to, and I thought back to what I found exciting in the area, and the only place that came to mind was Buffalo Wild Wings. I had memories of visiting the Dover location when I was in high school for the wing specials. I am still very much a fan of the sauces, and even introduced many of my roommates during college and internships to Buffalo Wild Wings for the first time. Everything about the environment I enjoyed, and if there’s one topic I know, it’s sports. I went in and asked about an application. I was informed that I need to apply at joinh5h.com, so I did. A couple of days later, I got a call from the GM John Lorenz asking me about an interview, and I’ll never forget it. He asked me, “Where is the time for me? Where does H5H fit into all of this you have going on?”. I laughed and explained that yes, half my year I will be in Baltimore, but when that half of the year is over, BWW is my focus, I can work any day or shift you need. Since that interview, I only worked that one season with the Orioles, and haven’t returned. I returned to Hartly following the season I started back at Dover, and quickly started training to be a bartender. I still hadn’t found any other promising jobs, so I decided I would coach another season of wrestling. That’s when I stumbled upon an internal job posting on a busy Tuesday night that seemed to fit me perfectly, and several interviews later and two years of representing H5H later, here I am today.
Currently I feel encouraged, supported, and challenged by Julie, my best friend Ryan, and the leaders in this organization. I am motivated to do better today than I did yesterday and have too many personal goals to list them all, but I’ll share a few. I want to continue to grow and learn. I want to broaden my social network. I’d like to create/invent something revolutionary or at least solves a problem. I want to compete in a National Dodgeball Tournament. I hope that wasn’t too overwhelming, but that’s my story. Thank you for reading, and in conclusion I’d like to end with some quotes that have resonated with me.
- “The harder you work, the harder it is to lose”
- “Hustle takes no skill”
- “Building a tradition, not resting on one”
What’s your Story?
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