Contact Rick: Handy-man. Mr. Fix-it. Maintenance man. Jack-of-all-trades.

Rick Rhinehart does a lot of things as the Maintenance Lead.

And anytime something needs a fixin’ — someone inevitably says “contact Rick.”

Driving around in his maintenance van, you quickly realize how many layers there are to explore.

To simply think of Rick as a ‘maintenance man’ would be short-sighted and unfair.

Rick isn’t just fixing things. He’s a caretaker for buildings and materials that date back to Arnold’s early days. He thinks about the hands that have touched these same materials and pieces of equipment by men who came decades before him.

He loves that he regularly gets to work on buildings that date back to the early 1900s.

The stories a true 2×4 could tell.

Rick’s story began ‘downstate’ as we like to say. He was transient as a kid — moving 18 times by age 12.

Somewhere in the chaos of all that moving, 7-year-old Rick found an Atari 2600 that didn’t work. After some experimenting and fumbling around, he repaired a broken wire and suddenly the Atari 2600 was his to enjoy.

That was his realization that not everything that is broken is junk — that he can most likely fix it. Give it a longer life.

Eventually he settled in the Detroit area where he became a true craftsman at his trade. There wasn’t an appliance he couldn’t fix, or a project he would shy away from.

But after 25 years, the city life had started to wear thin. He’s very candid that he wasn’t the ‘nicest’ guy at that point in his life.

He sought a quieter, more peaceful existence for him and his family.

With the support of his wife, they packed up and moved north with no plan in place.

A hope and a dream. A wing and a prayer.

A man and his tool bag.

They settled in the Cheboygan area. And within a few short years, the Rick that lived in Detroit was no longer the same man. This Rick is raising chickens, hunting, cooking food from scratch, no longer owns a microwave and continues to ease into the quieter and more peaceful life.

But the Rick that honed his skillset downstate is still present. And this version of Rick is helping Arnold preserve the past as we move forward.

The uniqueness that Arnold offers in Rick’s daily work life (there is no ‘routine’) is one of the things he enjoys most. Why he says he ‘gets to go to work’.

He re-plumbed the drain at our Main Dock location on Mackinac Island. A simple job. But this time after snowmobiling to the island across a frozen Lake Huron and then standing on 3 feet of ice beneath the dock.

A simple job becomes much more memorable.

He installed the new Arnold Transit Company sign on the Main Dock building. Another fairly simple job.

But he then points out, it’s a sign that millions of people will see when they arrive to the island.

A simple install with long-term impact.

Rick’s hands have quite literally touched almost every aspect of a guest’s visit — installing signs, parking lot maintenance, complete restroom remodels, dock maintenance, ferry terminal remodels, painting, lighting, and on and on and on. Heck, he’s even had the opportunity to assist with boat projects.

Rick quite possibly touches more parts of a guest’s journey than anyone else.

He also may very well be the first person you encounter upon arrival, because maintaining parking lots is on his very long list of responsibilities. So yes, there’s a good chance the ‘handy man’ is assisting with parking questions or restaurant suggestions.

And he’s good at it.

He may actually be better at talking to people than he is at fixing things. It’s a gift.

It’s fitting, the same young kid who discovered fixing an Atari meant it could continue to be used, is now doing the exact same thing on a much bigger scale at Arnold across docks, ferry terminal buildings, employee housing, parking lots, shuttles and more.

And to think, many years from now there will be another person in Rick’s position, thinking about the hands that have touched that same equipment before.

If only those 2x4s could tell them about Rick.

(Sidenote: “Contact Rick” took on a new meaning when we reached out to ask him to participate in a recent photoshoot to model our Arnold gear..a man of very many hats!)