Coming Home: Adam Lamb wanted a lower key lifestyle, near his family

Coming Home. An MCP Special Series.

Many people have traveled the world and have had life experiences that their hometowns could never offer them, but many of those people are choosing to leave those grand ventures behind to move back to their roots in search of a slower paced lifestyle. Mason County Press’ Kate Krieger meets up with some of these individuals who have decided to return home and is telling their personal stories in the series “Coming Home.”

If you want to learn more about the opportunities there are here at home, check out Talent Connect Ludington on Friday, May 9 at The Mitten Bar in downtown Ludington. See more details here.

Adam Lamb

By Kate Krieger. MCP Corresondent.

LUDINGTON – Family, boating and the beach have always been passions of 34-year-old Hamlin Township resident Adam Lamb. But moving away from the area made him realize how much he truly missed home and the slower lifestyle it really could offer him.

Adam’s family had always had a cottage a half block from Stearns Park and Lake Michigan, so he always considered Ludington to be his home away from home, until his parents, Ron and Wendy Lamb relocated from Ohio to Ludington full time in 1990. Adam then could call Ludington his, “home.”

“Growing up across the street from Lake Michigan, I spent a lot of time at the beach,” he says. “I fell in love with the lake and the beach and I really discovered the State Park.”

Adam’s parents later purchased a cottage on Hamlin Lake. That really made him enjoy the Ludington area even more and the amenities that Hamlin Lake had to offer, especially boating, he says.

After graduating high school, he went onto college at Grand Valley State University, but he would continue to spend the summers in Ludington. In 2000, shortly after college, Adam received his first “adult” job in Holland at Skipper Bud’s, a boat and boating supply outfitter. He moved to the Grand Haven area to start his new life away from the comforts of Ludington.

“I had no intentions of coming back to Ludington,” he says. “I really wanted to be in a new place to make a name for myself.”

He worked in the Grand Haven/Spring Lake area until 2012, making a lot of great business connections and really building up his resume. He started to really miss the small town pace and after visiting Ludington around New Year’s 2012, he had another reason than just missing his hometown to come back. Adam met his fiancé, Christine while home over the holidays and knew she was something special.

“I met Christine in early 2012 and I was still working in Grand Haven,” he says. “It then became harder to leave Ludington each time.”

He says he wouldn’t have changed much about his decision to move away during his 20s, but moving into his 30s, he really wanted to be home.

“The time in my 20s was great,” he says. “I really loved it, but I wanted to come home and to get out of Grand Haven. I missed the lower key lifestyle and I really wanted that small town feel again.”

He describes coming back to Ludington many different weekends while away and always telling people he was “going home.” He says that he never felt that Grand Haven was actually home, but Ludington was and it always would be.

“I missed my family and I wanted to spend more time with my dad,” he says.

In August 2012, he finally made the move back to Ludington full time and stated that it was a good change for him. He currently works as a sales manager in the manufacturing industry and has wedding plans coming up this September.

“It’s so great being active in things here,” he says. “I love being involved in the Yacht Club sailing school, at Lincoln Hills and boating on Hamlin Lake.”

With long terms plans pretty much set in stone, Adam doesn’t see himself relocating from Ludington anytime soon, nor does he want to. He loves his hometown and is very happy he can be back, living in a place that supports him, his family and all of his pass times.

“I love this town,” he says. “I want to settle down here and one day be retired here.”