Staff Profile: Rob “Change Up” Harris

You may think of Pine Cove as only employing lifeguards, counselors, and camp directors, but believe it or not, we also hire accountants as well! (That fact may not add up, but it’s true!) Get to know the fearless leader of Pine Cove’s accounting department, Rob “Change Up” Harris, who’s been faithfully serving behind the scenes for over ten years. Learn how he got his camp name, what cooking competitions he’s won at the office, and why he can be spotted helping with piles of luggage during the summer at camp!

What’s your role at Pine Cove, and how did you find your way here?
My role at Pine Cove is Senior Director of Finance and Accounting. Eleven years ago I was doing corporate accounting and just really felt the Lord moving. I felt this need to move on from where I was, and didn’t know what that meant and just started praying through that. I just really felt like the Lord was impressing on me to serve Him with my talents, and not necessarily change my profession, but instead of making somebody else rich, let’s use it to serve someone or serve a company.

A kid that was in our church youth group had reached out and just said, “Hey, you should check out this camp for Noah.” And so when we were looking at day camp stuff on the website, my wife happened to hop over to the full-time job listings and saw an accounting position open! I didn’t really pay much attention to it, but my wife was ready for me to move on from what I was doing. So she definitely encouraged me to at least have a conversation. Several interviews later and it became evident that Pine Cove was interested. So then we started praying through it, and I ended up getting an offer. Now 11 years later I’m still here!

What do you enjoy most about working for Pine Cove, especially as someone who moved from the corporate world to the nonprofit side?
I usually highlight three things I really love about working at Pine Cove. The first one being: it’s not about you. That mentality. We’re reminded in our office every day with a picture on the wall, but it is—it’s just so easy to be on the same team with people here when we’re all focused on the same goal. Another reason is that it is very relational. You’re encouraged to build relationships with people. It’s just fun to be around people and build those friendships. And then just opportunities to not just “do your job.” It’s very life giving, at least for me personally. And it’s as simple as daily trivia on the whiteboard at the office, or being able to go out to camp and just hang out with staff or sling luggage or whatever.

How did you get your camp name?
I used to play baseball, and so a lot of the room at my Name Game was trying to do the baseball thing, combining that with accounting, money, and finance. Someone spoke up and sold “Moneyball.” That was perfect for accounting and baseball. But they checked and a summer staffer had that name the year before, so I couldn’t be named that. Finally someone stood up and he’s like, “Y’all are just missing it. What was the strikeout pitch he mentioned? Change up!” He tried to tie it to accounting. He’s like, “Where do you go to get change—in accounting!” So that ended up being my name. So my camp name is ‘Change Up.’ That’s my full camp name! I love that it’s kind of just nice and short and simple.

Do you have any hobbies or unique interests?
I would say I’m an accountant, so “unique” is a stretch. I enjoy cooking and baking. I’ve baked all of my kids’ birthday cakes for them growing up. So that’s one. My daughter loves musicals, so we go see them  together. I really enjoy going to all the different musicals, and any sort of road trip we do together, we listen to a musical.

Have you ever won any cooking or baking competitions at Pine Cove?
Yes. If you can see my trophies in the background, yeah, we definitely have had some HQ cook-offs or chili cook-offs, and so I do way too much work for a small little office. I don’t take it seriously, but I make it serious. I want to make a serious chili. I mean, I do like… competition chili. It’s an eight to 10 hour process of spice dumps at different times, and three different kinds of meats, and way too much effort.

Tell us about helping out at camp in different capacities. You’re always quick to volunteer, and you have a long legacy of running luggage, grilling out at tailgates.
It started with Michael Atkinson, or ‘Bird.’ We were talking one day about how I can get involved at camp. He said, “Well, I help with the Young Guns, and we do closing day luggage.” So I started there running luggage with the Young Guns. Then later I started doing opening day at the Ranch, closing day at the Towers, just helping with luggage. I enjoy interacting with the college staff. I don’t have a natural way to—they’re not coming in to work with the accounting department for any reason. And so it gives me an excuse to get some time with them and just be shoulder to shoulder with them, and just get to know ’em.

Then someone at the Ranch who was in charge of tailgates said, “Would you be willing to come cook?” I’m like, “Sure!” So I kind of cook at pretty much every tailgate that they have. It’s a cool, all-day event. People come look for me now!

What impact have you seen Pine Cove have on your kids?
When I joined the staff at Pine Cove, I knew there would be some positive benefits. But one thing I didn’t realize is my kids… I knew they would get to go to camp, but all this extra stuff that they’ve seen—having the Forge students over, hanging out at camp, being with these young people—it’s had a tremendous impact on my children. For them to see young people love the Lord and be excited about it… Mom and Dad can preach it all day long, but when they see someone that they admire, that’s cool? Now they look for ways to not make their name great, but serve other people and volunteer and help. And so that’s all come from Pine Cove.

How did you meet your wife, and how long have y’all been married?
We met at Mount Lebanon Baptist Camp! She was working at the camp and I had taken my church youth group there for the weekend. We met and found that we had lots and lots of mutual friends. I just ended up having lots of conversations with her that week, and by the end of the week I was like, “Okay, I need to find her now.” So we went out, started dating, and got married in 2000. And December 30th will be our 25th anniversary!

What would your ideal day off look like?
Don’t get many of those with three drivers in my house—most of my Saturdays are spent working on cars! But we really, really love hiking and being outside. If we could not be inside, that’d be ideal. Anytime we can get away, we try to go to a national park, a state park. We have two big goals: go to every national park, and hike every single trail in the state park system in Texas. And so usually on a Saturday, if we don’t have plans and a vehicle’s not broken down, we will find a state park that’s a drivable distance that we can get to and back from in one day and knock out a few trails, if not the whole park. A couple Saturdays ago we went to Lake Bob Sandlin and they only had two or three trails, and so we just hiked all of them. Checked that one off the list. So I would say the ideal day off is getting up early, cooking a big breakfast. Preferably everybody eats together. Then hit the road, knock out some trails. We pack a lunch or a bunch of snacks and then find a small town restaurant on the way back home and eat some good food.

What is one thing that the Lord is teaching you right now?
We help lead the college group at our church, and we’re going through James. A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about James 3:17 and just talked about what wisdom is, and how it’s pure, peaceable, open to reason, full of mercy, sincere and impartial. It just goes against the loud voices that we have in the world these days, especially just the “open to reason” and “peaceable.” So just really trying to hear both sides of things when issues come up, and approach things with what would honor the Lord. And that’s what true wisdom is. Not my glory—my glory is going to lead to my thing. Being right is a limited viewpoint. Honoring God is kind of an unlimited viewpoint. And if I could just honor Him and what I do and my responses, that would go a long way to bringing what can be hard situations to more of a peaceful understanding.