Today we’d like to introduce you to Derrick Wessels
Hi Derrick, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Oh man, I first started in the coffee industry as a part time barista during high school at a local roastery in my hometown of Normal, IL called Coffee Nation. I learned to ropes of making coffee there, and continued on into college where I worked at another local place called Uptown Cafe’ where I learned a ton about business from the owners Tony and Shannon who took over as I started.
My freshman year of college I was gifted a small home roasting unit which I used to start selling coffee at a farmers market and launched my first business venture Beagle Brews Coffee. The success of Beagle motivated me in part to follow my passion and leave college to learn more about coffee and roasting. After a short time at Thirty-Thirty Coffee in Peoria, IL I packed up all my stuff and moved west to Fort Collins, CO where Beagle Brews became Beagle Coffee Company and I began competing in national and international coffee competitions.
Though a lot of moves, ups and downs, bartending, and a brief stint in water quality I was offered a position with Grace Coffee Company as a managing partner and Head Coffee Roaster in charge of coffee quality and training.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Things have been far from smooth.
One of the hardest lessons I had to learn came through the failure and closure of Beagle Coffee Company, which had been my first dream, and business wise first heartbreak. Chief among those lessons was how to properly negotiate with a landlord and plan a build out. At the time I was young, inexperienced in those areas, and determined to do things on my own. This ultimately lead me to underestimated to scope of what I was trying to do. I ended up leaving coffee for a few years to recoup from the loss, reflect, and reevaluate what I wanted to do.
I reentered the coffee industry as part of the team at Grace in the midst of Covid in 2020/2021. We were not alone in the service industry with the struggles a pandemic and related regulations brought. Needing to constantly adapt our employee and guest practices made the first years at Grace fast paced and required lots of creativity and adaptability.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Something that sets me apart in the industry is likely coffee competitions.
I’ve been competing for over ten years now in latte art, various brewing competitions, and barista competitions. This has lead me to a lot of success on a personal level, but now that I have been doing it for so long it has the added benefit of growing our wholesale and team by nature of training and consulting. It has been invaluable to us to offer training that is backed up by awards (US Latte art Throwdown champion in 2018, Coffeefest World Latte art open 4th in 2016, US Cold brew champion in 2018 and 2021, Rocky Mountain regional Barista competition 6th in 2018, and a few smaller local competitors)
One of the most rewarding things lately has been having several team members and others in my community that I am now working with as they enter the competition scene. The amount of growth that comes from putting your skills to the test under pressure, and pushing yourself to reach a higher level with each subsequent competition is simply incredible. The pride I have felt as a teacher has been immense.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Ask for help.
I struggle with this a ton, and it is the reason my first company failed. Hopefully you have a good team around you, or good friends and family you can reach out to, but if you have something big on your plate it doesn’t devalue it in the slightest if you have someone to lean on. I would say now that things mean even more to me when they succeed because I have a slew of people to celebrate with and share in mutual pride for whatever we achieve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gracecoffeewi.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffee_derrick
