Melissa Brown
By Tony Bennett
Some people, when the workday ends, just want to go home and kick their feet up and relax with a good book or a favorite show. Given the amount of extracurriculars that Melissa Brown is involved with, it would be fair to assume she never gets much downtime. But everything she does is a reflection of her love for the part of the world she has spent her life in.
“I was born and raised here,” Brown said. “I lived in Colorado for one year in 7th grade. Otherwise, I’ve been here my whole life. This is where we raised our two daughters. We live right outside of Superior, but we both have jobs, careers and family here.”
Brown works with Holden Insurance. “I’m going on 26 years in insurance and 18 years at Holden,” she said. Her entree into that field was her father.
“My dad owned an agency in town and he had some turnover for the first time in his career, and I was staying home raising our daughter. I went in to help him with some data entry, and I never left. It’s kind of one of those things where the more you know, the better you become, and the better you’re able to help people.”
Two years ago, Brown acquired a real estate license. “I was kind of looking for something to do on evenings and weekends, and I decided real estate was kind of a fun sideline,” she said, “and then someday, hopefully, I can do that into my retirement years.”
It may seem hard to believe that Brown had any extra time, given her full slate of volunteering duties past and present. She was the president of the Superior Kiwanis Club, was a member of the Mentor Superior subcommittee of Mentor North, is on the advisory board for Leadership Superior Douglas County and serves on an education committee for Professional Insurance Agents of Wisconsin. She’s also the vice president of Siggy’s Musical Garden, which puts on Porchfest each year, among other music-based initiatives. This is one busy person. But she does it all for the community she has spent her life in.
“I felt like I could invest my time and energy instead of writing checks,” Brown said of her charitable work. “I like to volunteer my time and actually try to make an effort to change things for the better.”
Brown might have a soft spot for Siggy’s Musical Garden among all her interests. “We went to an event, and I loved it,” she said. “At the time, they had just a few volunteers that were helping out on their very small board.”
The organization helps to bring music to people who might have trouble seeing it otherwise. “It’s not just free music,” Brown said. “We’re doing a bit more to enrich people that can’t get out and listen to music because of their disabilities or age or where they’re living.”
Whether she’s helping people to find the right insurance coverage, to get them into their dream home or helping them to see live music, Melissa Brown is out there in Superior helping to make the place that made her even better.
