Tyler Arkens, Notre Dame Academy class of 2003, is now the owner of a successful Green Bay flower shop, Green Bay Floral and Greenhouse, and has found his way back to NDA inspiring the next generation of football players. 

Arkens did a little bit of everything during his time at NDA. 

He was on the track team freshman through junior year, club lacrosse team junior through senior year, and on the football team all four years. 

Besides his sporting extracurriculars, he was also in band from freshman through junior year. He was a contestant in Mr. NDA both his junior and senior years, and he came first-runner up as a senior. 

He even participated in the musical Les Miserables during his senior year, and this was an experience he described as “once in a lifetime.”

After graduating, Arkens went on to attend St. Norbert College where he completed a Bachelor of Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design. He continued with his football career there, and his class had a combined regular-season record of 37-3. They were undefeated two times in four years!

So how did Arkens come to own Green Bay Floral and Greenhouse? 

“I absolutely had no intentions or plans to get into this line of work,” said Arkens. 

Before Green Bay Floral, he worked designing advertisements for Gannett, the company that owns Green Bay Press-Gazette and the Appleton Post Crescent. He spent some time there before realizing that his true talent was in the building and forming of relationships with others. He went on to pursue sales and sold different products for various organizations. 

Arkens’ involvement with Green Bay Floral and Greenhouse started when he was a kid. Growing up he was neighbors with the family that owned GBFG and attended middle school and NDA with their son, Nolan Kujava. After being let go from his job in 2012, he went back to work for the Kujavas. 

At this time, Arkens and his wife almost ended up buying the shop. It didn’t work out then, but in January of 2017, it finally happened. They purchased the shop and Arkens became the “Head Deliverer of the Sentiments of Life at Green Bay Floral & Greenhouse.”

Today, just like his time at NDA, he’s still doing it all–from marketing to social media, to working with his hands to create beautiful floral creations for every occasion – weddings, funerals, events or prom. 

Arkens said that the decision to come back to NDA to coach JV and Varsity football was an easy one. He grew up with supportive and encouraging coaches, and he wanted to be that type of coach for the next generation of players. 

“I was really lucky to play for great coaches, and not strictly “X and O” type coaches but coaches who really cared about us as people, too. That stuck with me, so I had always had the desire to give something back to the game through coaching,” said Arkens. 

And, just for the record, his daughter Lily is now a freshman at NDA.