Staff Profile: Carolyn Vetter Hicks

Carolyn Vetter Hicks

Carolyn Vetter Hicks is the co-owner, with Kelly Maxwell, of Line 21. The two have been friends since Grade 8, when they were living in Richmond, playing softball and skating with the Connaught Figure Skating Club. Carolyn is known for her wicked sense of humour, her uncanny impersonations, her razor-sharp scheduling mind, and her enthusiasm. She loves languages, travelling, Florence (among other wonderful places), and la dolce vita! Meet Carolyn:

Job title: El Presidente (shared with Kelly) – co-owner/director

Years at Line 21: Wow! 19 years – since the day Line 21 was born!

What you did before Line 21: Babysitter, Cherry Picker, Office Assistant, RV Renter to German Tourists, Ticket Seller, Paper Plant Scheduler, Fundraising Campaign Coordinator for a Big Local Charity, Translator, Office Assistant for the Catholic Marriage Tribunal, Tourguide in Vimy, France, English and French teacher in Germany – I’d say those are the highlights.

Favourite part of the job: Being able to put extras into captioning, like accurate foreign language, full librettos for operas, full and accurate representation of all kinds of accents. It’s great adding more information into the captioning than the hearing viewer will ever get.

Favourite project(s) you’ve worked on: Oh, so many! Recently, Crossing Lines, Motive, Arctic Air, Package Deal, Mr. Young, The Haunting Hour, The Bachelor Canada, Highway Thru Hell… The list is long, and really, every project is fantastic.

Best memory/story about working at Line 21: Oh, again, this list is long. I would say getting our first paying customer after six months of hundreds of letters – yes, letters – and phone calls – yes, phone calls! Every day is a new memory here and Kelly and I really should write a book. Maybe we’ll do a blog entry about some of the many, many highlights on our list.

Favourite Vancouver restaurant and why: This also is a long list. I think a favourite go-to restaurant for my family is Maurya Restaurant on West Broadway. The kids LOVE their butter chicken, and Rob and I enjoy pretty much everything. We can order each dish to everyone’s individual spice tolerance, which is a plus when we bring the kids!

Favourite place to travel: Again, a long list. I always tell the (true!) story of how I was stolen from a Florentine Hospital at birth and really come from an Italian noble family. I was cruelly adopted out to a German-Canadian family in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It actually worked out well, but my heart will always be in Florence, Italy. Pieces of it can also be found all over Europe, South America, Asia… too many places to mention. I’ve honestly loved everywhere I’ve travelled to.

Funny travel story/best travel memory: Probably when my dear Irish friend, Christina, and I took a train to a small town in Bavaria, Germany, to visit friends. This was the milk run train and it seemed to stop in every single village every few kilometres. We were on it for a long time and kept waiting for our stop. Finally, it arrived at the terminus and we still weren’t at our destination. It was late and we were very much in rural Bavaria, when I asked the conductor, who, in very thick Bavarian dialect, told us that this train didn’t stop at the town we wanted and we were about 200 kilometres away! We called our friends, who drove all the way to pick us up, giving us a midnight tour of the Bavarian countryside as we journeyed to our destination. The conductor waited with us until our friends arrived!

Great stories, Carolyn! Thanks for sharing. See more staff profiles here.