a letter from Crest Foods telling me they would pay my tuition if I worked 3 days a week and went to school full time. Perfect! “Lisa Winkler and Steve Crook were my supervisors at that time and my first trainer’s name was Es- sie Brewer. After three or four days with Essie, I trained with Maria Guerrero. I must have been really bad because they trained me for a week, if not longer. Less than a year later, I started running a line and after a couple of se- mesters, I worked full time on first shift and went to school on nights. So, I was a pretty busy lady and still didn’t know ‘what I wanted to be when I grew up.’ “I ended up getting my Associates in Computer Science and a Certification from Sauk Valley Community College in Computer Networking. Back then I had applied for work at several places, but no one local was hiring in IT. I was getting married and accumulating bills. Fortunately, I liked my hours at Crest and I liked the people I worked with. “So, 18 years later, I still don’t know ‘what I want to be when I grow up’. Maybe I’ll decide someday. Right now, I am the first shift Production Supervisor; I have been married to the same guy for 13 years; have two crazy beautiful girls and couldn’t be happier with where my life has ended up!” Just to give you an idea of how big this program is, over the last 18 years approximately 293 employees have partici- pated in the Junior College Program. Thirty-Four of these are still employed at Crest either in the current Junior College Program group or as full time employees. Tuition alone has cost Crest Foods about $565,000 and if you add the cost of employee benefits to this, that number goes up to $715,000! So this is no small potatoes program. It is a win-win for Crest Foods and these students.
Live Long & Prosper Safety Contest Winners by WAVE Safety Team Congratulations to all of the safety contest winners for the 4th Quarter and thank you to all employees who participated this year!
FY 2016 Year End Winner Louis Shinabarger (Production A) Phyllis Ott, Kevin O’Dell
August Winner Austin Tornow (Production A) Karen Yardley, Denton Yocum
June Winner Jason Rudkin (Ing. Div. Prod. A) Karen Yardley, Phyllis Ott
July Winner Steven Osborne (QA Lab B) Denton Yocum, Phyllis Ott, Kevin O’Dell
October, November & December 2016 Crest Ink 17
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