Aaron Hutchens

General Manager

I joined Treasure Trails in January 2008. My background is graphic design and illustration. At the time I was working freelance setting up brands for a lot of small businesses, in addition to all the design work, I was really interested in the logistics of small businesses. So I joined Treasure Trails part-time for a couple of years to help move forward a lot of the ideas which the founders Steve and Teresa had.

The early years were a lot of fun as we experimented into different revenue channels and worked on a number of different projects. We did a lot of work developing bespoke projects for a variety of different clients including the National Trust and BBC. I learnt a lot from Steve over those early years about how to write a good Treasure Trail, and the energy within the whole business was infectious.

As the business grew I came on full time and then in 2012 became the 'Creative Coordinator' to manage all the projects the business was undertaking. This was a great new challenge for me, but felt natural as I had grown with the business and from quite early on had always been so much more than just a designer - this is one thing for which I am forever grateful for - working in a small family start up business like Treasure Trails, you get to learn about all areas of the business, your opinion really matters, and you can have a big influence on what happens within the business.

My wife still asks me how I (an illustrator) became General Manager at the start of 2013, I think we concluded that it was due to my inability to keep my opinions to myself - luckily for me though - the Board must have felt some of my opinions were valid!

My biggest and most exciting challenge was setting up the current business model which Treasure Trails has, whereby we just focus on delivering outstanding Treasure Trails for our consumer market.

I really do love working for Treasure Trails - it is such a unique product, there is so much more we can do and no matter how bad a day you are having, all it takes is one happy Trailer to contact you to say how much fun the Trails are and my big cheesy smile comes back to my face!

Outside of work - I love the outdoors and especially the sea - I think that my sense of adventure and discovery really goes hand in hand with Treasure Trails.