REI’s President and CEO, Roderick Beidler, just returned last week from a round-the-world trip to visit REI staff. He was joined by REI’s Regional President for East Africa and the Middle East, Rick Heupel, and together they visited REI’s staff in Djibouti, Egypt, and Jordan—and boy, were they excited about what they saw.In Roderick’s words, “Nothing substitutes for being there!”

Cardboard boxes piled around the living room, the sound of duct tape coming off the roll, leaving a kitchen that you’ve loved to cook in: our REI staff are familiar with the actions of moving.

But the actions are not the difficult part. It’s the emotions that bite. When you move, you miss whatever you are leaving behind.

Sometimes our staff get homesick...