Meet Eric & Melissa of Laughing Gull Dry Goods + Far & Away, Maine

Meet the Husband & Wife Team of Eric + Melissa 

Eric and I met on April Fool's Day (yep, bring on the jokes!) just over 20 years ago.

When we met, Melissa owned her own business, Pursuant, Inc. which some knew as Pursuant Research, which she started after serving as VP of Research for Weber Shandwick, at the time the largest PR firm in the world. What started as a reprieve from her doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin, turned into a full-fledged career! Using market research and polling skills along with marketing savvy, Melissa helped large brands, government, and nonprofit clients make decisions around marketing, branding, and reputation. While the strategic work was satisfying, I longed for more opportunity for creative expression in writing and artistic pursuits.

In contrast, Eric has always been active in more creative fields. He studied print making, sculpture, and architecture at Bennington College, and went on to pursue his M'Arch at Syracuse University. He's been a professional, registered architect for a couple of decades, and is also has earned the LEED-AP designation, which demonstrates his concern for the environmental impacts of the built environment and commitment to devising strategies to mitigate them. 

Together, we have traveled a lot, collected art (so much art!), pursued a number of creative home renovations, and Eric has completed much of the work himself. When we lived in Vermont, Melissa pivoted to a higher ed career, and for a time, Eric was designing high-end commercial furniture for a small business that crafted the situation room table for the White House! We are inspired by a house's history, landscape, and story that can be learned through folklore, family members, neighbors, and layers of wallpaper, stucco, tiles. and more. Eric and I have owned homes in Washington, DC, West Virginia, Vermont, and Down East Maine, where, with our son, we intend to live permanently.