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Grandfather Mountain, Nature on a Whole Different Level

Mountain Profile: Libba Parsley

Libba Parsley Growing up on a 9,000-head hog farm wasn’t always fun and games for Libba Parsley. With 400 pigs being born every week Parsley had quite the job of delivering them, not to mention cleaning up after all 9,000. But believe it or not, Parsley said the paperwork in the office was the dirtiest job.

“When you are in clothes that can get dirty you don’t mind being dirty. But when you are in your normal clothes to go into the office and you have to touch the dirty, grimy paper that has been in the barns, that is what was nasty,” said Parsley.

Needless to say Parsley, Grandfather Mountain’s new Retail and Inventory Manager, had a lot of interesting experiences at her dad’s farm in Hollywood, Georgia. She eventually moved on to Sewanee, Tennessee and The University of the South to major in theatre design.

While Parsley loved being involved with the technical side of theatre and making things happen behind the scenes she realized that she didn’t really want to travel and do touring shows. She eventually fell into retail and moved to Boone with her husband Henry. She managed two stores in Blowing Rock for six years.

Then the opportunity presented itself to work at Grandfather and take on the title of Retail and Inventory Manager. She was able to use her skills gained in the past with computers and retail and have a fun twist added on.

“Up here I get to do all that stuff and then go play with cougars,” said Parsley.

Her main task at the moment is streamlining all of the retail inventory. She will be connecting the systems at the Gatehouse, Office and Nature Museum. The Top Shop’s information will be added at a later date.

“The computer system we have is an excellent tool for doing reports and keeping track of sales,” said Parsley. It is her job to electronically enter in the gift shop items the Mountain receives, how much they are selling and when it is time to reorder. This will help track items more accurately and the reports will make the information easier to read for everyone.

With technology quickly changing, Parsley has a lot of plans for her job in the future at Grandfather Mountain. At some point she would like to have an Grandfather Mountain Internet store up and running for people to buy items and souvenirs online and have them shipped directly to their homes.

She also has many other ideas about working with different departments to make their jobs a little easier and get the most benefit out of the technology that is in place.

“Grandfather Mountain already has a lot of great systems and programs in place,” said Parsley, “and I am here to bring those around to the 21st century so we can maximize what we are getting out of them.”

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