Staff Highlight: Kat
Cooperation is at the center of our cooperative business; it takes many, many hands with a variety of skills and experiences to operate a successful grocery business. This month, we are proudly featuring employees that help make our co-op run smoothly each and every day. We hope you enjoy learning more about our hard-working, passionate staff – and that it helps put a name to another friendly face that you see while you shop!
Kat is our”fire-fighting” IT manager that can do it all! She can program the POS and other internal systems, fix any electronic equipment, and helps out with nearly all aspects of the co-op. We are lucky to have Kat on our team.
Kat was nominated by a peer with the following comment:
“She works tremendously hard! She is always “fighting fire” and solving issues so gracefully. Her kind professionalism is unwavering.”
How long have you worked at Open Harvest?
Kat: More than a decade!
What is your favorite thing about your work shift?
Kat: Analyzing situations and solving problems.
What co-op product can you not get enough of at the moment?
Kat: I’m a true millennial. Organic avocados and Le Quartier’s ciabatta rolls make a mean avocado toast.
What does it mean to you to be part of a co-op?
Kat: It means that the business model I work under and for aligns with my personal values.
Can you describe a time when you “fought a fire”?
Kat: The “fire” that stands out most in my mind is the POS crash in February 2013. It was Margot’s last day before retirement (she came back) — what a chaotic send-off! While I worked with our POS vendor to get us back up and running, the whole store came together to see that customers could get their groceries, fetching prices from the shelf and totaling sales on a standard calculator. It was cooperation in action!