Bryan Bartee, general manager of KanPak Arkansas City (left) and Mark Wetterau, GSF Chairman and CEO (right) receive the Chairman’s Challenge Award, presented on Feb. 12, 2020 in Newport Beach, Calif.
Highest Annual Honor Recognizes Arkansas City as the Leading Facility of 2019 Throughout the GSF Family of Companies
Golden State Foods recently awarded its 2019 Chairman’s Challenge award for outstanding facility achievement in safety, customer service, employee satisfaction, efficiencies, profitability, and innovation. This year’s award went to GSF’s subsidiary company, KanPak in Arkansas City, Kansas. The annual award, recognized as GSF’s highest internal honor, was presented to the KanPak team at Golden State Foods’ Global Leadership Conference in Newport Beach, California.
“As we mark the 20th consecutive year of Chairman’s Challenge honors, I’m so proud to recognize our people in Arkansas City, who effectively embrace our GSF Creed and Values every day,” said Mark Wetterau, chairman and chief executive officer, Golden State Foods. “Following up last year’s Chairman’s Challenge win by its sister facility in New York, this KanPak Kansas team exemplifies what’s possible when a team comes together to achieve its common goal.”
The Chairman’s Challenge Award recognizes the KanPak Arkansas City team for demonstrating outstanding performance in many areas, including these key accomplishments: improved safety and quality metrics, including a milestone of 1 million associate hours worked over four years without a lost-time accident; earned high ratings on third-party audits and customer satisfaction surveys; supported increased customer demand, given competitor shortfalls in the supply chain; completed major capital projects to improve capacity and efficiency; and achieved financial plan, improving year-over-year performance.
Additionally, KanPak Arkansas City contributed more than 1,300 collective volunteer hours during GSF Foundation charitable events, earning recognition by local government for giving back to the community. From backpacks and bikes to shoes and meals, KanPak associates served neighbors in need through their time, talent and treasure.
“By strengthening our culture to focus specifically on accountability and ownership, the commitment from every member of our KanPak Kansas team enabled us to lay the foundation for this honor early in 2019,” said Bryan Bartee, senior director for KanPak in Arkansas City. “With that realignment in our culture, together we heightened productivity, achieved key performance metrics, drove continuous improvement and ultimately supported our customers’ success to the highest standards.”
In addition to the Chairman’s Challenge Award, GSF presented its “Best in Class” awards in four categories that recognize large facilities (Platinum Awards) and small facilities (Diamond Awards) in distribution and food processing. The distribution category winners include QCD Los Angeles for the “Best in Class” Platinum Award and QCD Spokane for the “Best in Class” Diamond Award. In the food processing categories, KanPak Arkansas City won the “Best in Class” Platinum Award and KanPak China earned the “Best in Class” Diamond Award. An annual tradition for the past eight years, the “Best in Class” honorees comprise the finalists for each year’s highest honor, the Chairman’s Challenge Award.
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