08/25/2026
Check out Sean's feature from Humans of Oshkosh!
“I left home at 15. My home life wasn't tenable. I became an emancipated minor and moved from the Chicago suburbs to Northern California to start fresh. I had no safety net. I had a couple thousand dollars I'd saved from mowing lawns and having paper routes. I'd left school early and gotten my GED.
At first, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I rough-camped for a couple of months. I had to take gas station baths and things like that. I was so dead set on never having to go back to rough camping or searching for a place to live that I took whatever work I could find. But when I get nervous, I'm a nervous talker. So I talked to everyone. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was networking.
People started offering me warehouse work and paying me under the table. Someone would say, ‘Hey, my wife likes to cook, and she made a little too much dinner yesterday.’ Eventually, people would say, ‘I've got this basement,’ or, ‘I've got this guest room.’
I found warehouse work stacking boxes, getting pallets wrapped and getting products ready for freight shipments. I'd been there for a few months when someone said, ‘Hey, what do you know about global ocean freight logistics?’
I said, ‘I know of those words.’
They said, ‘Do you want to learn?’
I said yes.” (Part 1 of 2)
(Grace's Note: I met Sean Swift while interviewing him and his wife, Jen Steffen, co-owners of Bleak Boutique in downtown Oshkosh, as part of my partnership with Discover Oshkosh. We were talking about the business when Sean casually mentioned that he'd left home at 15. I'm pretty sure my next words were, “You did WHAT?” I stopped asking about the store. I'll introduce you to Jen and Bleak Boutique in September. But first, I thought you should meet Sean. Part 2 coming soon.)
