Introducing The Oxford Company Crew!

 

Cotey Gallagher received her BFA in illustration in 2000, and since then has illustrated a number of children’s books and worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer as her side hustle. She came to The Oxford Company in 2018 and quickly learned the art of punch needle rug hooking, becoming an Oxford Certified Instructor in 2019. Chances are, if you have recently called or emailed us you’ve talked to Cotey, since she handles the majority of all of the customer service calls and emails! Don’t let the number of years fool you, Cotey was a quick study and absorbed all of the information and history about punch needle rug hooking that she could within the short time she has been here. Cotey has also started helping us design new patterns and kits for our loyal customers!

  

Nancy Hall  Hi! I’m Nance Hall and my rug punching madness started when my sister and I took a class at the Oxford Rug Hooking School. My sister had made several lovely rug hooked pieces and I wanted to learn. Needless to say after one class I was completely enamored with the whole rug punching process. (Even ripping punches out is fun, once you get over the initial shock!) From there I joined a wonderful weekly rug punching group that made the whole process even MORE fun and provided me with encouragement and a great deal of support.   Then The Oxford Company had a need for a needle maker, and for the past 5 years I’ve made thousands of needles.  I love being a part of something that allows people to be creative all over the world.  To envision something and let it emerge via punch needle is such fun to be a part of and watch happen.  It’s amazing to think that a punch needle made in my living room could end up almost anywhere around the globe!  I’m so grateful they bring so many people such Joy.

My coworker in the picture with me is Plum.  She helps me find the needles that roll away!

 

Sid Hansen is the newest member of the Oxford family and is a jack of all trades. He traces patterns, breaks down frames, boxes needles, and is still learning the concept of twisting a perfect skein. A corporate refugee, he spent 24 years in the banking industry before seeing the light and escaping to Vermont. He is a animal lover with two adorable schnauzers at home. He loves to travel the world and the Camino Frances is calling...

 

 

Hannah Harding, a native of Cornwall, Vermont, began working at The Oxford Company in 2020 as Amy's Executive Assistant and Digital Marketing. She is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and comes from an artistic and crafting family, making the move to working at The Oxford Company an easy one. She is a team player ready to help out wherever the need is and is especially enjoying cataloging the McAdoo Rugs collection and getting it ready to add them to the website. Hannah also spends much of her time keeping Amy in check and on the straight and narrow. She lives in Cornwall with her kids, neurotic dog, and ferocious cat and can oftentimes be found in the woods around Addison County exploring nature with her feral children or lost in a good book. 

 

Christy Lombardo has been with The Oxford Company since 2017, where she first started as a dye assistant to Heidi and now does all of the dying for our Violet Jane yarn line. Christy has a Master’s degree in historic preservation and spent 10 years working as an architectural conservator in NYC before making her escape to the beautiful Vermont countryside. She loves color and all things fiber and in her spare time can be found knitting, quilting, and undertaking house renovation projects which drives her husband (who also does QC for OxCo) “freakin’ bonkers”.

 

 

Dick Phillip began working for The Oxford Company in early 2020. He is one of our wonderful at-home punch needle assemblers. Dick has been a woodworker for many years and when the opportunity to assemble Oxford Punch Needles was offered, he found it to be a perfect fit for keeping him busy during retirement!

 

Dave Stankoski has been with Oxco since the end of 2017. His first gig here was helping Amy put together a series of tutorial videos for her youtube channel.  With punch needle sales on the rise, he also pitched in and helped with punch needle assembly. His obsessive attention to detail in punch needle assembly led him to his current job of performing quality control of every punch needle made. In a previous life, he worked in broadcast operations and engineering for an American broadcasting company. When not threading punch needles, he can usually be found playing guitar, mowing the lawn, shoveling snow or trying to perfect his nap skills.

 

Heidi Whipple started at The Oxford Company by answering an ad in the local paper to assemble Punch Needles in 2009. Over her years with The Oxford Company she has done everything from assembling the punch needles, dying Violet Jane Yarn, customer service, filling orders and teaching classes. She even fixed the stone path the first year the school opened! In 2013 she became an Oxford Certified Instructor, and in 2019 an Advanced Oxford Certified Instructor. Heidi is the senior manager and oversees most of the daily activity at The Oxford Company. When Heidi is not at work she enjoys spending time with family and her two cats.

 

Lily and Toby are our security, greeters, and emotional support dachshunds. They take their jobs extremely seriously providing laughs with their comedic antics, laps around the light table at optimal zoom speed, tug of war matches, and naps at feet.  Toby can oftentimes be found waiting for a belly rub and Lily can be spotted napping in the sun. 

 

And...

Amy Oxford - To learn more about Amy, Click here.