Activists visit Sears headquarters

Hoffman Estates is this insane business park/suburb/corporate wasteland of a place 40 miles northwest of Chicago. As far as we could tell there are other corporate offices located in the direct vicinity as the Sears Headquarters, but Sears maintains the largest and most obvious space, occupying a gigantic mirrored glass office building surrounded by manicured lawns, pruned trees and water fountains. Elizabeth and I parked and walked to the visitor entrance whereupon we were told by the receptionist at the front desk that Mr. Lewis rarely sees visitors without appointments. Upon our urging, the receptionist called his office to see if we could meet with us and relayed to us that in addition to not being able to meet with him, she was instructed to not accept any packages from us either. As I explained to the receptionist that what we had to deliver was an add to be run in national papers articulating Sears' destructive catalog production the security guard told us that someone from Public Relations was on their way down to speak to us. Eventually we were able to sit in the fancy atrium with all of the other visitors, but first were made to stand essentially in the corner by the door as I'm pretty sure the security guard was leery of what us two women were capable of. After waiting five or ten minutes three people from Mr. Lewis' PR department came down to speak with us.

Overall the conversation went really well--I was particularly surprised by the dialog in fact. I spoke with the three representatives for probably 10 minutes or so. A highlight of the conversation came when one representative ecouraged Elizabeth and I to look online at Sears' and Lands End's paper policies and after they were through with speaking, I was able to say that I had, in fact, looked at their paper policy and then listed some of the key attributes that it's missing--no sourcing from endangered forests, 30% post-consumer content, FSC certified, etc. I also dropped Tom Katzenmeyer's name, saying that he is now one of FE's strongest allies and is talking to the catalog and paper industry about sustainable practices. Because I was really prepared in knowing my stats and history of the campaign, it felt great being able to talk the three of them and I'm sure that we made quite an impact of them today!

Elizabeth was awesome and while we were told not to film upon entering the lobby by the security guard, she slyly recorded the audio feed while we were in the building. We also made mental notes about the facility and brainstormed some potential actions while we were waiting in the lobby. One exciting thing we discovered as we left Hoffman Estates is the Sears Center, Sears' very-own sports arena right in Hoffman Estates. We stopped and picked up a schedule of events and it seems like some great opportunities are potentially on the horizon....

So that's that. It went really well and I'm confident that Mr. Lewis will hear all about our visit today as well as see the package of campaign material which we delivered. While corporate sub-divisions are normally not on the top of my list of places to visit, I'm looking forward to continuing to shake things up around Hoffman Estates over the course of this campaign!