TACOMA, Wash. — Washington Huskie Football. Seattle Mariners. Seattle Seahawks. Seattle Sounders. Olympic Reign and the Seattle Storm. What do all of these sports teams have in common? The answer is
Sean Kauffman '23. The Pacific Lutheran University baseball alum works at SuperGraphics in Seattle as a sales account executive with all of the teams.
Sean was a three-year starting outfielder with the Lutes and an on-base machine. His career .387 on-base percentage was nothing short of stellar. A Business Administration major with a concentration in Marketing, Kauffman knew that he wanted to remain connected to sports after his playing time finished up.
"I first got in contact with SuperGraphics my junior year at the PLU networking night for student-athletes put on by former athletes. I met Zac Thorpe a former golfer at PLU, at the event and we talked about internship opportunities that summer. I worked as an intern for SuperGraphics and made many deliveries, organized files, shadowed coworkers, and learned as much as I could about sales and marketing in those three months. At the end of the summer, I was given the opportunity to come back and work full time as a part of the sports marketing team at SuperGraphics when I graduated as a sales representative," said Kauffman.
Kauffman is far from the only Lute student-athlete to work at SuperGraphics. Zac Thorpe '01 was a men's golfer at PLU, winning medalist honors at the Northwest Conference Championships in 2000 and helping the team win a conference title. Thorpe has worked at the company since 2005 and is currently the vice president of sales. Additionally, softball standout Sara Potwin '22 works at SuperGraphics, landing a gig there in August of 2022 as a graphic designer.
The summer following his junior year Kauffman joined Super Graphics as a summer sales intern. Super Graphics is a print solutions company based out of Seattle that partners with a variety of companies and organizations. The internship for Kauffman was beneficial as he helped with products for the Mariners, Seahawks, Sounders, Storm, and OL Reign. The main highlight of the summer was helping with the installation of the Mariners All-Star Logo which was unveiled the summer before the All-Star game.
In his short time at SuperGraphics, Kauffman has been extremely busy.
"My first weeks on the job after graduation was project management mode for the All-Star game that was being hosted by the Mariners. On day one our team was in T-Mobile park helping organize the graphics that needed to get installed, doing some of the installations, and making sure things were going in the right places. It was all hands on deck to turn Seattle into an All-Star City."
"It was such a cool opportunity to have behind the scenes passes to one of the biggest events in the MLB. It has been one of my favorite things to walk around the ballparks and stadiums and get to point out projects that I had a helping hand with."
Kauffman has worked with the Seahawks on Retro Game Field Banners, and the Sounders on-field banners and seat covers, along with a variety of other projects.
Kauffman's favorite project this year was collaborating with UW Football to create album covers for each week.
"They even did a feature of it on ESPN college gameday which was super fun to set up and have them come over and film".
So far the experience has been amazing for the former Lute ballplayer.
"I'm very grateful for all the training and help that I have received along the way from my coworkers and specifically Zac. He has taken me under his wing and brought me into the sports world that's been his work since he graduated PLU in 2001. As I start to grow my book of business and build strategies to land clients such as Nike, I'm very grateful for the education that I received."
Kauffman went on to thank professors Cosette Pfaff and Ralph Flick who teach in the Business department. For him, SuperGraphics is just the start of the rest of his career.
