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Caroline Kauffman-Kirschnick has worked every facet of her family's nearly 90-year-old foodscrvicc equipment parts, repair and installation company since her preteen years. Now she stands to become the company's first female president, and the youngest at 36 years of age, offering a fresh perspective to this segment of the industry and determined to take EMR to new levels of service innovation, employee engagement and customer service.
FE&S: What is the history of EMR?
CK: We trace our history back to 1927 when my grandfather, Harry Kauffman, purchased the company from a partnership of four gentlemen. At the time, the company was focused on repairing portable household appliances, electric motors and some commercial wiring. My father, Roger Kauffman, took over as president and CEO in the early 1980s and helped grow the commercial kitchen equipment repair division exponentially, as the household appliance repair division was fading. EMR still has a profitable industrial division, which has always been a significant revenue and profit center, servicing electric motors in the elevator, printing, and shipping industries to name a few. But now the majority of our business is in commercial foodservice equipment repair, parts and installation.
FE&S: When did you join EMR?
CK: T worked at EMR during the summers throughout junior high and high school. After graduating college, 1 spent a fewyears with a small business that serviced industrial tech equipment before joining EMR full-time in October 2003.1 started out in accounts receivable where I worked for a little less than a year until the human resources department had an opening that intrigued me. I was given the opportunity to work in HR for live years and saw firsthand the importance of the human aspect of our business and the internal workings of the company. I moved on after those five years and got my feet wet in operations, learning every position in the company, from dispatching to parts to billing and more. I also worked in sales for a...