Dear Clients and Friends, what a privilege to introduce you to Dan and Kim Dressel. Long time friends of the Palmer Family, Dan and Kim live a life centered on faith, family and friends – while living with the challenges of Dan’s spinal cord injury. Perhaps we all can take a page from their life playbook – live one day at a time – with great joy and gratitude!

Share with our readers a bit about each of your childhoods and how you two met.

Kim grew up in Homewood, a south suburb of Chicago, the youngest of five children. Dan grew up in Bexley, the oldest of three. Both graduated from college in 1986, Kim from Purdue and Dan from Notre Dame. We met at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Chicago, both beginning our careers in IT Consulting. We met on a large software implementation project. We are still in touch with a group of friends in Chicago from that first project in 1987; strong bonds because we worked hard and played hard! Though strongly discouraged according to company policy, we began dating in 1987. We got married on August 12, 1989, and moved to Durham, North Carolina on August 14 for Dan to pursue his MBA at Duke University. I was able to continue working for Andersen in Raleigh, NC.

Tell us about your family.

We have three amazing daughters: Sarah (30), Andrea (28), and Emma (23). Sarah and her husband Mario live in Durham, NC with their two dogs. Sarah completed her MPH at UNC Chapel Hill and is a Registered Dietician in a healthcare practice. Andrea completed her MSW at the University of Chicago and is a Social Worker in the Neuro-Spine unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Emma graduated from Butler University with a degree in Sports Media and is a sales associate for the Milwaukee Bucks (NBA team). We find it nothing short of a miracle that all three of our daughters are working in their respective fields of study! What a blessing! Dan is a fiercely proud girl Dad and has recruited two of his daughters as Notre Dame football fans and one huge Duke basketball fan.

Kim’s siblings are spread across the Midwest in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa, with one outlier in Texas. When she’s not here, you’ll find Kim in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where two of her sisters spend the winter months. Dan’s sisters are in Bexley and Cincinnati, and his parents live nearby in Bexley as well.

Share a bit about your business career(s):

After Dan graduated from Duke in 1991, we moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked for NCR in finance and marketing. By this time, Kim had figured out that she did not aspire to be a partner at Andersen, so decided to leave consulting when we moved to Dayton, and also ended up working at NCR. While in Dayton, Dan discovered that he preferred consulting and returned to Accenture to work in IT Project Management for the rest of his corporate career. Dan worked on a Y2K project in Washington, D.C. (one of thousands of IT projects to ensure that computer systems wouldn’t come crashing down with the calendar rolling over to the year 2000) for several years, which resulted in our move to northern Virginia in 1998, when Sarah was 4 and Andrea was 2. With this move, Kim made the decision to stay home with the girls. We loved our time in DC, but 9/11 really changed our perspective and priorities. We missed our families in the Midwest and wanted the girls to grow up closer to family. That led to the decision to move to Columbus in 2003, when Dan had an opportunity to manage a project in Ohio. After several years, Dan got restless in corporate America; fast forward to 2016 when he decided to purchase a UPS Store franchise. The pandemic was an interesting time, as the service his store provided was considered “essential,” and the shipping industry went crazy. Fortunately, we were able to sell the UPS Store franchise six months after Dan’s spinal cord injury.

When Kim realized in 2011 that there were 12 years of college tuition on the horizon, she decided to return to full-time work outside the home. I am so grateful to have had both experiences – of ‘working Mom’ and ‘stay-at-home Mom’ (As I reflect, both prepared me for the biggest challenge of my life). Kim returned to her professional roots, joining a Columbus-based IT consulting firm in 2012, where she is currently the Senior Employee Experience Manager.

Talk about Dan’s health challenge and how you have been able to handle it so well.

I suffered a spinal cord injury (SCI) in October 2022. My injury was the result of a hematoma that formed on my spine after being released from the hospital for a procedure for AFib, a heart condition. They have no explanation for the hematoma; there was no precedent to suggest it was related to the heart procedure. Unfortunately, because the doctors were so focused on my heart and preventing a blood clot, it took more than 24 hours to identify the source of my pain. Following emergency spine surgery, the initial days and weeks were a very dark time for our family, as we moved through anger and shock toward the realization that I was now a paraplegic.

One word comes to mind regarding how we have been able to face this challenge: community. There are no words to describe the support and encouragement we have received from our community, which includes family, friends near and far, our church community, neighbors, and work colleagues. Through different phases of the past two years, people have shown up for us, sharing their skills, financial resources, and knowledge. We have also met amazing people across the SCI community – other patients who live with SCI, caregivers, and volunteers! I also think that the dynamic of our personalities as husband and wife for 35 years has played a role. Dan is one of the kindest people you will ever meet; ask any caregiver who worked with him during the two months he was in various hospitals. His gentle, but strong spirit has served him well. He is now back behind the wheel of our converted van, regaining critical independence. Kim has an army of angels (sisters, daughters, friends), and is able to compartmentalize life in order to take care of what needs to get done; Dan acknowledges this and expresses his gratitude and love every day.

What constitutes a “great life” for you two?

This is an interesting question. Before Dan’s injury, we were just beginning to think about retirement and what that might look like. For now, a great life is being part of a community, part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s watching our daughters find happiness as they become young women who care deeply and aren’t afraid of hard work. A great life is also one filled with gratitude; not glossing over or minimizing the challenges but recognizing and celebrating what is good. Looking forward, we hope a great life will include living on the water, a place where we both find a sense of calm and peace, and where we know our kids (and hopefully grandkids) will want to visit.

Dan and Kim – thank you for sharing so powerfully with our readers. May your great life journey continue to be source of joy and gratitude for you and one of inspiration for the rest of us!