Day in the Life with Shawn Askinosie

Tuesday is Shawn Askinosie’s favorite day of the week.

The once famous – or infamous, depending on one’s perspective – Springfield lawyer turned chocolatier feels alive on Tuesdays.

“That book is the reason I make chocolate,” he says of Mitch Albom’s bestselling memoir, “Tuesdays with Morrie.” “I try to schedule as many meetings as I can on Tuesdays. It’s a special day.”

This Tuesday starts out much the same as any other day – with faith. By 6 a.m., the 54-year-old is up and stretching in his east Greene County home office. A little yoga to get loose, followed by his morning prayer practice, which includes lighting incense and candles from Assumption Abbey. Askinosie is a trappist family brother, having recently returned from a four-day stay in the Ava abbey.

A gift from his wife, Askinosie fires up the Vitamix by 6:30 a.m. with a frozen banana, almond milk, Greek yogurt, kale, protein powder, a handful of cocoa nibs and some ice, then it’s back in the office for the days first round of email.

“If it’s 7 a.m. here, it’s 8 p.m. in Davao,” he says. “I’ve got to check in on my farmers.”

Using the apps Boomerang and Unroll.Me, Askinosie has whittled his inbox down to a dozen or so messages a day in an effort to reduce stress. So far, it’s working.

The day’s first project is Askinosie’s untitled book. Writing about business vocation, he taps out a little each morning before his daughter and director of sales and marketing, Lawren, makes edits.

By 8:45 a.m., Springfield’s Willy Wonka is at his chocolate factory, a Commercial Street rehab among the first of its kind and an example of Askinosie weaving social responsibility into everything he does. Askinosie Chocolate plays Jack Stack’s Great Game of Business and this morning’s huddle is filled with discussion of bulk shipments to Austria, problems with a farmer in the Philippines and employee safety as workers cross C-Street headed for the company’s new private offices down the road. Connecting their iPhones with a TV screen, each department makes their report before group stretching begins. Askinosie says stretching multiple times a day gets the blood flowing and the energy up.

An hour later, production staff gathers for the weekly chocolate tasting. Today’s three bars include a 68 percent dark Tanzania chocolate slated for Target Corp. production. In February, the company was picked for Target’s Made to Matter collection, and production is about to ramp up. The factory molded 2,653 kilos of chocolate in April, but Target production is off to a slow start as the 250-kilogram chocolate storage tank went down last week.

Another Askinosie Chocolate partnership is on the agenda just before lunch. As part of the Chocolate University program, Askinosie and assistant Sarah VandaVeer, hop in his Land Cruiser and head to nearby Boyd Elementary with a box of Andy’s Frozen Custard’s Askinosie Woo Hoo Concrete in hand – a name coined by a Boyd student. The treats are the culmination of a year’s work for two fifth-grade classes. With just 12 days of school left, the students are eager to tell Askinosie about their summer exhibition projects, part of the International Baccalaureate curriculum.

Askinosie enjoys podcasts and makes time for them during lunch in his car. Today, and most days, it’s Chipotle. By 12:30 p.m., he’s back at it in his office down the street. He says factory noise finally became too much to handle during phone calls. He flips through a couple more emails before a conference call with Lawren and Chief Operating Officer Allison Cash about a shipment to Japan. His cubicle is small. An iMac, MacBook and coffee station sit prominently, along with a few book and family photos. Soft jazz from Pandora’s “Whiplash” station plays as he flips open the Mac dashboard to check one of seven world clocks.

“How will the Japan order affect the rest of the stock?” he asks, regarding cocoa butter supplies.

As rain begins to fall outside his window, Askinosie heads a few feet down the hall to inspect a product packaging display in preparation for a product refresh meeting.

It’s less than a block walk back to the factory for a spate of afternoon meetings, including an update on the company’s corporate gift program and the standard 2:30 p.m. production meeting, and he has just enough time to check on the now-fixed storage tank and sample the current white chocolate batch.

But first, Askinosie and staff pause for an afternoon meditation session. Like most things, there’s an app for that. The sounds of soft waves wash on the shore as a soothing voice narrates the seven-minute work break. The group sits Indian style on the floor of Askinosie’s former office in the factory. Soon, the room will be filled with chocolate for Target. Though still licensed to practice, the afternoon session is a welcome departure from his life as a lawyer, where he received multiple death threats for his work.

A tour group goes by in the background as Askinosie heads to a Lost & Found Grief Center board meeting at Mercy Hospital Springfield. A center founder after suffering the loss of his father as a teenager, Askinosie is greeted with smiles and a story from another member struggling to find his chocolate while on vacation in Florida.

After walking his two dogs and enjoying a beer on the patio, Askinosie ends his day the same way he started, his nightly prayer practice and a little bit of faith.

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