Meet Your Neighbor: Robb Ziebol
Stay-at-home dad helps local businesses get online
by Nicholas Backus
Staff Writer
Ziebol spends half his days designing Websites, half watching his 4-year-old son. - Submitted photo
Their children might be taking a nap, or in Robb Ziebol’s case, his son often visits grandparents for the day. So what is there to do the rest of the day, when no crying infant or needy toddler is present?
Ziebol, 40, started making Websites (www.zeebedesigns.com). It’s a needed skill in a business landscape where the Website has outpaced the importance of a storefront. If a company doesn’t have a Website, it practically doesn’t exist to a large section of consumers.
Ziebol works with local people looking to go online. He keeps his prices low: About $250 for a startup fee and $25 an hour for additional maintenance. So far he’s done six or seven local sites, including Forest Lake personal trainer Karissa Johnson’s “Moms on the Run” Website. (www.momsontherun.com) and its sister site at www.premierphysique.com. It’s a nice way for Ziebol to keep busy, and bring in a little cash on the side.
Ziebol’s love of computers and Web design started as a Centennial High School student, where he played “Oregon Trail” and other rudimentary programs on old Apple II computers. He went on to St. Cloud State University, where he studied education. Yet he was always interested in the technological aspects of teaching.
In 1995, He landed a job at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Robbinsdale, where he taught 30 kids in a 12 by 12-foot room.
“They had old Apple II compatibles in a closet-sized room in a basement,” Ziebol recalled. Eventually, his class was moved to a different room about the size of his large Lino Lakes basement, where he is currently sitting.
In the room sits two school desks, one decorated with pink stickers, the other with blue. Ziebol explains that he doesn’t homeschool his children, a 9-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, but the desks make good downstairs decoration. In the corner sits a massive Macintosh computer monitor where Ziebol does the majority of his work. He’ll spend some nights sitting at the monitor until 1 a.m.
Upcoming projects include a site for Circle Pines jewelry and wine accessory store “No Whining Designing.” Although he retired from full-time work at Sacred Heart in 2005, Ziebol still manages the school’s Website from home. He pulls in about $5,000 a year from his stay-at-home activities to supplement his wife’s full-time work as a nurse at a local hospital.
“I’m hoping my pricing can be a benefit for me to get more business,” Ziebol said.
In his three years of at-home Web design, Ziebol has gained many online friends in the “Rapid Weaver community.” It’s the name of the program Ziebol uses.
“I like to see my work on the Web and comments from the community,” he said. “It’s good to hear from peers and show each other our sites.”
As his son nears school age, it’s tempting for Ziebol to go back into the workforce full-time, but he hesitates to leave his online friends.
“No one ever takes offense to anything (in the Rapid Weaver group),” he said. “If I don’t go back into teaching I want to keep doing this because it’s a great group of people.”
To see more of Robb Ziebol’s Web design, visit www.zeebedesigns.com or to contact him email at rziebol@zeebedesigns.com
Nicholas Backus can be reached at quadnews@presspubs.com, 651-407-1235 or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/quadpress.