Today we’d like to introduce you to Zachary and Patrina Slack.
Zachary and Patrina, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We are like most people in the world who work hard and value living a simple life. For that reason it has been our endeavor to maintain that simple life by creating our own business and spending more time with our children. Our story begins in 2005 when Zack and I met through work – another family owned business owned by both of our step-fathers. I started working in the front office of my family’s car dealership while Zack maintained all the vehicles at his family’s garage. Despite these two men having been friends and business partners for over 30 years, neither one of us knew the other even existed! Both of us were newly divorced and working towards making a new life for ourselves that would open up a better future for our children. Three years later we married.
Since the two family businesses were all that we had going at such a young adult age, we continued that flow and branched off with creating our own small-town car lot. We always involved the children in whatever we were doing. Teaching them about work in general was our way of preparing them to be dedicated and honest workers in their future. They were young at that time, so they couldn’t assist much, of course, so we spent more time just talking and teaching them that there was a time to work and a time to play. We chose to take our children to work with us instead of hiring a sitter. We are fortunate we had that opportunity, and looking back we can’t believe we pulled it off! At that time, we had two 6 year olds and two 7 year olds. Parenting “two sets of twins” was incredibly challenging, but an enjoyable experience with many life rewards.
That said, we realized that working with children in-tow during summer essentially felt like homeschooling. Everything we did was a learning lesson. So, we contemplated schooling the children ourselves while at the same time, created yet another Mom and Pop business with some very dear friends of ours. This provided yet another avenue for us to continue teaching our children and maintain our simple life. We had such an adventure! But like most things in life, experiences lead to new interests and Zack’s interest began to change.
While he helped build such an immersive environment designed for the entertainment industry, Zack learned a lot about videography and photography. At the same time, I learned a lot about marketing a business since it was my task to market the escape room my husband co-owned. All-in-all, we both were learning new things and became quite successful at them.
During that time our son received a drone as a gift from his grandmother. Zack played with it more than he did! But the pair spent time understanding the technology put into these drones and it fed his passion for wanting to fly when he was a teen himself.
About a year went on and his interest in this continued to grow. He began watching a lot of tutorials on YouTube – which many people know a person can self-educate using the plethora of free information! And he did just that! Everything he knows today about videography, photography, operating drones and multimedia editing is a product of his dedication in combining his interest into a business. This took a lot of time and energy. And not one day went by that he didn’t make sure his family’s needs were met first.
One day sitting at our dinner table it was announced, “Kids, Mom and Dad are going to start another business!” And we did. Sky Guys on Cedar Creek Lake was born, and using my self-taught marketing skills I began creating the Sky Guys (CCL) brand that you see online.
We are often asked, “How do you work together and not want to strangle each other?” and “How do you school your kids and work?” The answer is easier said than done. And we aren’t always GREAT at it. However, we have learned over the years that most marital anxiety is caused by being unbalanced. Pair that with schooling! We swear by this that setting a schedule, making a plan and writing a list always proves to be the key to getting things done and doing them with grace and respect. We share the responsibility of schooling our children and we make the most of our 40 hours a week both in school and part-time work.
Working with your mate is not always amazing. But working with your best friend is! And keeping the things that we value in life as our priority helps us put into perspective that “there is an appointed time for everything under the sun.”
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As they say, it takes about two to three years to build a business. Some of the struggles we faced were reaching the market we targeted, which was real estate. Showing our worth compared to the bigger companies with multiple photographers was a challenge. But our small town is all about supporting small businesses and from our experience now at the three year mark, all of our clients feel the same way too.
Please tell us about the company.
We are Sky Guys on Cedar Creek Lake – a licensed Drone Operator that specializes in real estate photography and videography. We are known for our beautiful Cedar Creek Lake drone shots and twilights. As a company we are most proud that we have the clients we do. They have become our greatest asset and a very enjoyable part of our work day. We feel what sets us apart from others is that we are not in the business to get rich, build multiple locations or blow up the internet with our photos. Rather, we want to maintain a simple living and continue making time for our children and volunteering, which is best known for its door-to-door activity.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Patrina: My grandmother would visit and sneak cookies into my room after mom would tell me to go to sleep. Those visits included shadow puppets on the wall and lip syncing to a Frankie Ford hit.
Zack: I’m originally from Utah. We’d travel a lot. Sunday morning drives with my dad in the mountains of Idaho were very impressionable on me. For this reason, Patrina and I make sure we give our children these same experiences.
Contact Info:
- Website: SkyGuysCCL.com
- Phone: 903-340-2234
- Email: info@SkyGuysCCL.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyguysccl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkyGuysCedarCreekLake
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1PXzSh_5DV8-l90e5nY3Og
Image Credit:
Slack Family Photo credit Charlotte Segura Photography
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