The Team: Eddie and Renee Cloutier
Mar 2, 2009 Print This Post
Today I continue my little Monday tradition highlighting someone from Riv’s team that rocks my socks off.
This post highlights 2 people who are 1 in the flesh: Eddie and Renee Cloutier
Eddie and Renee have been part of our team at Riv since…well…since I wasn’t even a teenager yet. Let’s just say it was a long time ago.
I remember the first time I met them. A bunch of us were heading to a conference and when we boarded an airport shuttle, there weren’t enough seats. So I sat on this dude’s lap. He looked vaguely familiar to me, but little did I know how much…
The first time I visited their home, Renee made me whole wheat cinnamon rolls from scratch. Oh man. They are still one of my favorite things ever.
At the time, Eddie was co-pastoring one of Riv’s daughter churches in the Detroit area. Over time, they ended up moving back to the Lansing area and that’s where I got to know them better and better.
Eddie serves around here as a volunteer extraordinaire. I seriously don’t know how he has time to run his business with all he does for us. He has overseen many projects at Riv; from our finances, to our operations, to our facility. Eddie is a “trend genius.” He can predict where our finances are going with the most subtle of changes and can spot building problems before anyone sees them. Eddie is singlehandedly the reason our building is in as good of shape as it is. His most recent project was getting our building expansion built. He kept everything going smoothly and on budget.
Renee is a part-time staffer around here in the office. She works with our financial gifts, doing all the grunt work of entering data and producing my favorite piece of paper of the week: the weekend report on attendance and giving. She also keeps her eye on our Own It. campaign. But one of Renee’s most valuable roles for me personally is cheerleader. She constantly shoots me encouraging emails about what’s happening around Riv and when necessary challenges me to get my butt in line. Awesome.
Eddie and Renee are uniquely gifted to help make other people successful. I owe a large measure of my personal growth to them and Riv owes them more than anyone will ever realize.
March 4th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Great write-up.
I never quite thought of it in this way — what it is that makes them special, but so very true!
You and me and many others, I suspect.