CHICAGO – Paige Pera, daughter of Matt and Linda Pera formerly of Kingsford and granddaughter of George Pera and Floyd and Gail Schultz of Kingsford, heard a voice that sounded familiar while decorating a Christmas tree a few weeks ago.

“It sounded like President Obama, and I thought ‘That’s the best imitation ever, ‘” said the 25-year-old Chicago resident. “It sounded better than the guy on Saturday Night Live.”

It turned out there was a good reason the voice sounded like Obama’s. The tree on which Pera was working was in the White House – Pera’s employer had been chosen to create some of the building’s holiday decor. And the man standing near Pera was the leader of the free world.

“He had four or five Secret Service guys around him,” Pera said. “All I could think to say was ‘I’m sorry for being in the way.’ He thanked me, thanked everyone for the work they were doing. I really wanted to take a selfie with him, but his security didn’t look like they’d like that.”

The 2007 graduate of De Pere High School was in the White House because of her job as a graphic designer for agency EA, a Chicago marketing and events management firm. For each of the past five years, the agency has been selected by the First Family to do some decorating for the nation’s best-known residence, which means about 15 of the firm’s employees spend months designing and producing decorations for certain rooms.

Pera was chosen by her bosses to prepare work for three rooms, including the East Garden Room – often called the Booksellers Room – and a glassed hallway called the East Colonnade. She also decorated trees within the building’s private residence, and in the Yellow Oval Room – the scene of her impromptu meeting with the president.

About 70,000 people will visit the White House during the Christmas season, and the holiday decor is featured on an HGTV special called “White House Christmas 2014.”

For Pera and her colleagues, the job carried a great deal of pressure – and several long days setting up the exhibits. Just getting the faux Christmas presents and other decorations checked by security and a bomb-sniffing dog required about five hours. Workdays began with meetings at 6 a.m. and then decorating work began at the White House two hours later.

They had volunteers to assist – more than 100, representing almost 40 states. But Pera and her colleagues were occasionally visited by the Obamas’ Portuguese Water dogs, Bo and Sunny.

“It got pretty stressful at times,” she said. “It seems like we were dealing with hundreds of thousands of ornaments. By the end of one day, we were all just dying, our feet were killing us, waiting for (the work) to be over.”

Back when she’d been an honor roll student at De Pere, Pera never imagined the White House – or even a marketing agency – as a future workplace.

A painting she’d done in elementary school had won a statewide contest, and some of her eighth grade work won a prize in a show sponsored by the Women’s Club of De Pere, but Paige had other career aspirations. When she enrolled in a pre-medicine program at Chicago’s De Paul University seven years ago, her plan was so specific that she didn’t intend just to be a doctor, she already had a specialty chosen: cosmetic dermatology.

But dad, Matthew – a nurse – and mom, Linda, knew better. They remembered days of needing to remove the fallout from art projects from the family table so they had a place to eat dinner, and figured that Paige and younger brother Alex were likely headed for careers involving art.

“Her dad and I were a little surprised by the decision to study medicine,” said Linda Pera, a clerk typist for the Brown County Register of Deeds. “We were worried that pre-medicine wouldn’t make her happy. She and her brother have been artists almost since they came out of the womb. Almost every art contest they’d entered, they won.”

After two years as a pre-med student, Paige told her parents she really wanted to pursue a career in art. She applied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and was accepted.

Paige had a major role in decorating the president’s house for the holidays. And Linda got to be Paige’s guest at a White House event at which Michelle Obama honored the artists and volunteers in early December.

“I’m totally in love with what I do,” Paige Pera said. “And to get to do it in a building that’s like a museum? That was just so amazing.”