Junior College Program Where are they Now? by Cheri Kemp
Ben Kinn - 1998
Ben Kinn - 2016
Amy (Schutte) Wilcox - 1998 Amy Wilcox - 2016
If you think about 1998 – it was 18 years ago. For some, that is not that long ago. For others, well, it is really just the beginning! Crest Foods originally started our Junior College program in 1998. Most of our current employees taking advantage of this program were just infants then! In the October 1998 issue of the Crest Ink we wrote about the beginning of this program and featured the 28 young people who were part of that inaugural group. Not a lot has changed in the parameters for enrolling in the Crest Foods Junior College Program. In 1998 anyone wishing to have their tuition paid at Sauk Valley Community College (SVCC) had to work 3 nights per week on our second shift. Not only did they earn a wage, but they also received prorated vacation and holiday pay as well as bonuses. Over the last several years we have added tuition to Kishwaukee Community College, Rock Valley Community Col- lege and tuition to Northern Illinois University, based on a comparable rate to SVCC, to our list of schools. Currently we have 18 employees in our Junior College Program scattered among several schools. Our goal is not necessarily to have all these employees remain Crest employees, but to give us a steady base of young people willing to work on our second shift where they are an important part of our production area. From our inaugural ‘class’ of 1998, two are still Crest employees and now in management positions. Amy (Schutte) Wilcox is a first shift Production Floor Supervisor and Ben Kinn is the first shift Warehouse Floor Supervisor. Ben remembers when he first started working here 18 years ago on second shift, his supervisors were Steve Crook and Lisa Winkler. At that point Ben spent most of his time stacking on lines 1,2 & 3. Eventually he was experi- enced enough to train most of the new employees who came to work on those lines. From there he progressed to dumping for various lines and then transitioned to first shift where his supervisors were Gina Smith and Jeff Roop. Ben said “one day I asked Gina if I could learn to drive a forklift. The next day she threw me in the production warehouse with Dan Yates, Adam Drew and Jeff Capes!” For the next several years Ben transferred from first shift, to second shift and back to first in a variety of jobs due to his versatility. During this time he acted as a warehouse expeditor for first shift warehouse then a level 6 supervisor for the production area. This position, where he learned supervisory skills, eventually lead him to being Warehouse Floor Supervisor when Neil Henert retired as Warehouse Manager and Jerry Lawrence moved from Warehouse Floor Supervisor to Warehouse Manag- er. It was a winding journey from starting as a Junior College Program employee to being the Floor Supervisor but a journey that Ben has enjoyed. “I have met a lot of good people throughout the years. That would be one of the biggest reasons why I stayed at Crest Foods” said Ben. From Amy Wilcox: “I can’t believe I’ve worked here for 18 years! I started out in the Junior College program that many years ago, part time, on second shift. The first line I worked on was line 21, (back then, it was called line 12) a 3 pouch hamburger helper line. That was a year after I had graduated from high school. I had studied at Western Illinois for a semester, then came back to attend Sauk Valley Community College to save money. That summer I got
16 Crest Ink October, November & December 2016
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