With You Every Step — Episode 5
Leading with Both:
Cammie McKenzie on Numbers, People, and the Future of Brown’s Shoe Fit
In Episode 5 of With You Every Step, hosts Adam Smith and Craig Jarrard welcome Cammie McKenzie, President of Brown’s Shoe Fit Co., for a candid conversation about her unlikely path from corporate accountant to company president — and the people-first vision guiding the next five years of growth. Recorded at the Apex Waukee School Podcast Studio, this episode traces Cammie’s two-decade journey through the company and opens into a wide-ranging look at the culture, training program, and customer experience that have carried Brown’s Shoe Fit for more than a century.
Cammie came to Brown’s Shoe Fit in 2001 from an accounting and finance background — CPA in hand, but little interest in taxes — and spent the next twenty years moving through the company as office manager, board member, and CFO before stepping into the president’s role four years ago. Craig offers a heartfelt tribute to Cammie’s rare combination of financial rigor and genuine compassion, a pairing he says is uncommon in leadership. From there, the conversation opens into a full picture of Brown’s Shoe Fit: the ownership opportunity extended to trainees, the culture that carried the company through the Depression and COVID-19, the customer experience that sets locally owned stores apart, and Cammie’s vision for what comes next.
From CPA to President:
An Unlikely Path to Leadership
Cammie’s path to the top of Brown’s Shoe Fit didn’t start in retail. She joined the company in 2001 as a corporate accountant and office manager, drawn in by the uniqueness of the business model and the stability of a company that had already been around for 90 years at that point. She learned the shoe business from the inside — board of directors, CFO, and finally president four years ago — a journey she describes as different from most, since she came in from the outside rather than growing up in a store.
The Hardest Challenge:
Moving Headquarters to Dallas Center
Cammie doesn’t shy away from calling the company’s relocation from Shenandoah to Dallas Center the biggest challenge of her career — an undertaking that meant uprooting teams, families, and homes. Two years later, she’s clear it was the right call: the move put Brown’s Shoe Fit closer to the Des Moines metro, opening access to talent and opportunities the company couldn’t reach before.
Giving People Their First Opportunity
Cammie calls the moment she offers a trainee their first store “the magic” of her job. Brown’s Shoe Fit runs a fully accredited apprenticeship program that pairs hands-on, on-the-job training with a path to real ownership — trainees grow into managers, and eventually into owners of their own stores in their own communities. It’s a legacy Cammie traces back to founder Win Brown, who gave Charlie Perry his first opportunity when the company opened its second store roughly a century ago. Today, that same model supports 73 locally owned and operated stores.
Rebuilding the Pipeline:
A Renewed Focus on Training
With growth ambitions ahead, Cammie has set a clear goal: 25 to 30 people in the training program at any given time, with five ready to step into ownership each quarter to cover retirements and openings. Stores have been challenged to hire accordingly, and they’ve responded. What Cammie looks for first isn’t shoe experience — it’s character: a good human with a positive attitude, self-driven and motivated to do the right thing “regardless if anybody is looking.” The shoe business, she says, can be taught. That foundation can’t.
“Find that place that aligns with your values and your vision, and then go all in — and don’t let go.”
— Cammie McKenzie, President, Brown’s Shoe Fit
Learning to Lead
Cammie is candid about her own growth as a leader, admitting she “was terrible” at supervising people early in her career and had to rebuild her approach from the ground up. A piece of advice from former president Dennis Grummert — that you have to figure out how you’re going to get out of something before you get into it — has stuck with her every day since. As a self-described introvert working in an industry full of extroverts, she leaned on curiosity and a genuine enjoyment of the people around her, a lesson she calls the biggest takeaway of her career.
Culture Built to Last:
From the Depression to COVID-19
The conversation turns to what has carried Brown’s Shoe Fit through more than a century of change — including the Depression and the uncertainty of COVID-19, when the company protected every employee’s paycheck. Craig shares a story from the early days of the Fort Dodge store, when business partner Glen Schlotter told him, “We trust you. We know 100% that this is gonna work out” — a promise that held true over the following three decades. That same culture, Cammie and Craig agree, is what makes the company’s annual gathering feel less like a business meeting and more like a family reunion.
What Sets the Customer Experience Apart
Because every Brown’s Shoe Fit store is locally owned, each one stocks what its own community actually needs — work boots in some towns, nursing shoes in others. Cammie describes the ideal customer experience as unhurried and personal: a proper fitting with a Brannock device, genuine listening, and a focus on the right shoe over the highest price. It’s an experience, she notes, that simply can’t be replicated online or at a big-box retailer.
The Vision for the Next Five Years
Looking ahead, Cammie’s priorities are growth with intention: hitting the training program’s hiring goals, growing e-commerce as a complement to — not a competitor of — the in-store experience, and expanding into new communities, including helping independent shoe stores in the Midwest find a path forward rather than closing their doors. She’s candid about the balance required: optimistic ambitions checked against a realistic, sustainable pace of growth.
A True Partnership with Vendors
Cammie also speaks to what makes a strong vendor relationship: partners who stand behind their product and value independent retailers as much as big-box accounts. Craig credits Cammie with starting a vendor appreciation event — held four times so far — built entirely around saying thank you, with no ask attached. It’s a gesture, he says, that vendors don’t expect and never forget.
Words of Wisdom
“Everything starts with your people… We can teach people how to run their own business, do the book work, marketing, all the things that come along with running a shoe store if we have that base of somebody who is self-motivated and has their heart in the right place.”
-Cammie McKenzie, President, Brown’s Shoe Fit Co.
What’s Coming Next
Episode 6 will continue bringing Brown’s Shoe Fit leaders and store owners into the conversation, with each episode closing on one guest’s most actionable piece of advice. As Cammie puts it, the goal is simple: better humans produce better results — and there’s plenty more of that story left to tell.
Listen to With You Every Step
Hosted by Adam Smith and Craig Jarrard, With You Every Step goes inside the people, culture, and community behind Brown’s Shoe Fit — 73 locally owned and operated stores strong since 1911. Interested in the ownership opportunity Cammie describes in this episode? Learn more at brownsshoefitco.com, and find a store near you to see the Brown’s Shoe Fit difference for yourself.
