Her Story
About Kathryn
I've been in my field for 23 years, and it's been quite a journey. I started as a microbiologist in Detroit, Michigan, and was shortly promoted to lab manager when they asked me if I wanted to figure out how to get the lab accredited with ISO 17025 certification. As a young college grad, I had no idea what this was, but I figured it out. I moved to Chicago to get my graduate degree in food safety and technology, and worked for Steris Isometrics where I was introduced to quality and fell in love with it. I gained a lot of auditing experience there and refined my skills over a little over 2 years. Then I moved to Minnesota and worked for Hormel Foods, where I experienced multiple product categories for a little over 4 years. After meeting my husband, we moved to North Carolina for 6 years where I was a quality manager for a vegetable canning facility. Once our kids started school, we moved to Ohio, which is where I'm originally from, just a different part of the state. I worked for Schwan's doing frozen pizza in a dual facility (FDA and USDA) with 750 employees, where I had a pretty large crew reporting to me including sanitation, quality, and microbiology departments. After 2 years, I switched to Givaudan where I started on the North American regional team. In 2023, I switched to the global quality team and I've been really enjoying my time with them, expanding my network globally. Each day is really different - today I started at 7, tomorrow I'm going to start at 2:30 because I work with different time zones. It's a lot of project management and people management. I oversee all of our regulated programs, regulated documents, auditing programs, and training initiatives. My biggest thing is knowing how to network and communicate with people. I always say I've never met a stranger, and I think that comes across in how I can talk to people and pull them into the story that I want to tell.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kathryn
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think my most notable professional achievement so far is making cultural changes so that people can speak up, and they feel comfortable speaking up. My biggest thing is you need to know how to network and communicate with people. I always say I've never met a stranger, and I think that comes across in how I can talk to people and pull them into the story that I want to tell. I'm not going to tell you anything fun, so I need to make it fun. Being able to influence people and engage them is really important - it's not just about engaging quality people, but how do we engage other people in our organization to be involved in quality and care about putting quality first? That's a big thing for me.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Flexibility is really the key thing - in quality, everything is different every single day, and I just need to be flexible. I think it's important to understand that volunteering is important, so I'm always dragging my kids around so that they can volunteer and understand that volunteering is important to them. I serve on a lot of community things in my neighborhood for food advocacy, and I'm always volunteering at a food bank. Even with my busy schedule - I literally landed on a plane at 3 o'clock yesterday and had two of my kids at a doctor's appointment at 4:15 - I make time for what matters. Building my brand and expanding my network are important to me professionally, and I'm really big into making everything in my yard healthy for pollinators, the bees, the hummingbirds, and other things by putting out natural or native plants.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · Ohio
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.