Kevin Hogan Writes...

January 2015

brating a birthday in February a Happy Birthday. In addition to this, congratulations to all celebrating Service Anniver-saries in February and one of our milestone anniver-saries: Andy Ol-tremari (Executive Business Manag-er) will celebrate his 10th Anniver-sary on February 16th. Remember to submit your pic-tures for birth-days, anniver-saries, weddings, graduations and births to Donna Hogan.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season as we prepare for the challenges of the New Year. We had our whole family in for the week of Christmas. The house was deco-rated for Christmas for the first time since we moved here and full of family including Bree (Ben’s dog) and Jack.

I know that Dino has visited Columbia to at-tend some meetings. He also has scheduled a meeting with some of the General Manag-ers this month in Hou-ston. John Mullin was going to pay a visit to Ripley as well as at-tend the meeting in Houston. I visited ICP in Portland to join Randy Cantonwine, Jon Munchus and Brett Downey for lunch. Randy and I al-so attended a dinner event. It is always nice to visit ICP.

I am in the preliminary stages of setting up a trip in April to Houston, Columbia and Ripley. I will visit the plants in that order.

2015 will present lots of challenges, internal-ly and externally, for the company. I know that the Business Man-agers are busy pursu-ing new business which could lead to ex-pansion. I have been entertaining adding an-other Business Manag-er to cover Texas. The business climate in Texas is booming even with the lower oil pric-es. Tony Chiodini (CFO) continues to pursue companies for acquisition whose busi-ness practices compli-ment our own. Some of the targeted states have been Texas, South Carolina, Ten-nessee and Minnesota.

I would like to wish everyone who is cele-

Pierce Distribution Services Company

Kevin Hogan

Jack’s Words

Of Wisdom...

“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what

you want.”

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Pierce Distribution Services Company

ICP (Portland) Writes... February forces me to think of Valentine’s Day… This in turn reminded me of a “would-be” on-line dating experience I endured a while back. “Sally” was interested in meet-ing… I agreed, and then got no response from her for ten days. Finally, I sent a HELLO??? email which led to: ———————————–—-————————

Randy, I did get the message - sorry to not respond sooner... I am re-thinking - I enjoy an urban lifestyle - and am really looking for someone who does also - so I think it might be a waste of everyone's time to meet. Sally ————————————————————–———-——————— Since her profile picture showed her in outdoorsy clothing hiking with a canine companion, it struck me as odd that I was too hillbilly for Sally. I couldn’t resist… ————————————————————–———-——————— Sally, I understand your concern. Sometimes when I go to town (for supplies) gals point and giggle at my Cenex hat and big rubber barn boots. On my last trip though, I did meet one lady who was real friendly. We talked for a fair while. She kept asking questions that I didn't quite understand. I finally realized that she was one those "fancy women" that they have in the big cities. (My Pa warned me about ladies like that, but I never thought I'd really meet one in person and all.) She got plenty mad when I wouldn't let her get in my old truck. The city's headed my way though, whether I like it or not. For the last ten years the county has been saying that they'll string electricity out our way any day. That scares some folks, but I'm look-ing forward to replacing that old hand pump on the well. It's the Indians that I worry about. The El-ders still perform their dances and ceremonies, but they say the "singing wires" will change every-thing. Let me know if you change your mind about meeting. We could get together on my next trip to town. If it's not raining, I'll ask the storekeeper to load my bacon, beans, and coffee into the back of the truck. That way there'd be room for you to sit up front. Let me know! Best, Randy P.S. You aren't allergic are you? I might need you to hold a couple of chickens on your lap. ——————————————————————–———————————————————————-———————————- Strangely, I did not hear from her again…

Randy Cantonwine

Celebrating 13 Yrs. of Service

Brett Downey

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Pierce Distribution Services Company

Columbia Writes...

Sarah Hinchee

Donuts for Birthdays

At Plant 4, we cele-brate everyone’s birthday for the month by enjoying a donut from Krispy Kreme. Happy BIrthday to all who celebrated birth-days in January. Ja-marcus Bennett is ex-periencing a donut for his first time. (Photo

above) He did say that it was pretty tasty.

Ripley Writes... MILESTONE FOR

JAY HOGAN

On January 3, 2015, Jay Hogan, General Manager of our Ripley facility, celebrated 15 years with Pierce Dis-tribution Services. He is congratulated as he receives his 15 year service certificate from V.P. John Mullin.

10 Years & Going Strong! On January 31, 2015, Todd Rice celebrates his 10 year anni-versary with Pierce Distribution. Mark Strawn, Plant 7’s Assis-tant Plant Manager, presented Todd with his 10 year certifi-cate and $200 Visa Gift Card. Todd has worked in many dif-ferent departments and is currently the Line Lead in Alloca-tions. Always a joy to work with, you can find Todd giving credit to his fellow associates as he encourages them to do their best. Everyone wants to be in Todd’s department – he has a real knack at making each associate feel important and uses positive comments to make the “best” even “better”. Thanks Todd for your first 10 years, we hope your next 10 years will be even better!

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Belvidere Writes...

Pierce Distribution Services Company

Rockford Continues...

Mike Moore

Misty House, Associate of the Month Thanks to Plant 7’s first shift Line Lead, An-gela Rivard, for nominating Misty House for the honor of Associate of the Month. Misty works on the Tokyo line, but

has worked basically all over the plant. Always positive and genuine in her work habits, she is appreciated by everyone. Supervisor, Tabitha Lee, ech-oes the same compliments for Misty. “We’re glad she is part of the Pierce family. We can always count on Misty and she is always determined to do her best, no matter what the chal-lenge.” Angela goes on to say that Misty is excellent in the sorting area and awe-some at finding “hots and backorders”. Breaking down tickets is easy to Misty and she takes such pride in her work. Organizing her work and making sure everything is in the right place is just like being at home. Misty, a single parent, is proud of her 4 young sons – William, age 15; Caleb, age 11; Jaden, age 9; and Shawn, age 6, keep her on her toes. She describes them as “for real farm kids”. They are all extremely smart and inquisitive as Misty admits she was just like them while growing up in the country. “I loved sitting down and reading the encyclopedias and just learning about new things”. The boys now have the ad-vantage of laptops (computers) and will spend hours surfing the net learning new and interesting educational things. On February 2, 2015, Misty will celebrate her one year anniversary with Metro (our temp agency) and looks forward to the day she becomes a full-time Pierce associate. Thanks, Misty, for being such a good choice as Plant 7’s Associate of the Month – You are the best!

L-R Tabitha Lee, Supervisor, Misty House, Associate of the Month, and Line Lead, Angela Rivard

Cheers to Joshua Moorehead

10 Yr. Service Anniversary On January 17th, Joshua Moorehead, Belvidere Opera-tions Manager, was celebrated for his 10 year service anniver-sary with a luncheon by John Bednar, Exec. General Mgr.

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Belvidere Continues...

Cynthia Mena

Happy New Year Everybody! How are the resolutions going so far? Anyone stop smoking yet or cut back on the grub yet? For those of you who do make resolutions, best of luck to you all. I, myself, think they are silly. In Receiving we are so excited about the New Year! We have started Janu-ary out with 2188 receipts and 64433

pieces. WOW that’s awesome! I would like to welcome Merry Jenkins, Derrick Jones, and Yvette Acosta to our Receiving De-partment. Merry comes to us from Shipping. She is doing a won-derful job running our UPS line and prepacking at the same time. Now, if I could only get her to quit talking so much!! Just kidding, Merry. (She is quiet as a mouse). Derrick is currently our newest put-away associate. He has done a great job keeping up with the prepack line and is always willing to offer a helping hand wherev-er needed. Yvette started out on the UPS line and is now current-ly prepacking on the line. Yvette has a great attitude at learning new jobs. I would like to congratulate Tina Blunt for being hon-ored as Associate of the Month. Tina has done prepacking, shop orders, binning, and UPS check in. You name it, she’s done it. Tina has recently taken over the returns department and has done a wonderful job keeping up with the workload that has been thrown at her. I’m very proud of her accomplishments.

Associate of the Month

Tina Blunt [L] Associate of the Month for Belvidere is congratulated by

Cynthia Mena [R].

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We have started the New Year with hope of good things to come. We made it through an-other holiday

season. I hope the holidays were good for everyone. As the kids grow up and families branch out, the holidays seemed a little less stressful. Everyone starts their own holiday traditions and we get to sit back and relax. Yes, we did visit my sibling-in-laws on Christ-mas Eve and my family on Christmas Day, but it was as guests. No worries about cooking or cleaning or decorat-ing. We brought a dish to pass and socialized. For New Year’s my hus-band and I spent some time alone to-gether and it was wonderful. As for work, I have begun learning some of the ins and outs of Inventory Control. I will be helping out with cycle counts and shop orders during Brittany

Thompson’s pregnancy leave. Con-gratulations Brittany! She just found out she will be having a girl. We are all so happy for her! I would also like to congratulate this month’s Associate of the Month, Tina Blunt. Tina has been with us in the Receiving department as a Pierce associate since November of 2012, and a temp before that. She has tak-en on the responsibilities in the Re-turns department and proved to be up to the challenges presented to her there. Thank you, Tina, for all your hard work. Finally, I would like to congratulate a couple of associates who celebrated service anniversaries with me in Janu-ary. Happy Anniversary to Joshua Moorehead,10 years; and Jeremiah Arnold, 8 years!! And, I completed 11 years this month. Live well and prosper.

Carol Hebel

Hello from the Inventory de-partment. Wow, I can’t believe 2014 passed so fast. We are

almost into February 2015 al-ready! My… where is the time going? As a child my mother always told me “don’t be in a hurry to grow up” and boy was she right. It seemed like when I was in school time stood still and now the older I get the fast-er the years go!

I would like to share some ex-

(Continued on page 6)

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Belvidere Continues...

citing news with everyone. Recently, I found out that I am expecting my first child! I am due at the end of May and we find out at the end of this month what we are having. My boyfriend and I are super excited about this wonderful news and can’t want to start this new chapter in our lives. This truly is a blessing for us!

I would also like to congratulate Tina Blunt as she is honored with the Associ-ate of the Month award! Keep up the GREAT work, Tina!

(Continued from page 5)

Brittany Thompson

Our Executive Secretary Writes... Years ago, it was a popular myth that the average person swallows eight spiders in their lifetime, all while sleeping. Eight. Spiders. I read that on the internet, where of course everything you read is true. Just to be sure, I double checked it on the Snopes website where it de-

bunks that theory. In fact, most of the information that I read said that it is very unlikely, nay, HIGHLY unlikely, that you would ever swallow a spider while asleep. Sweet dreams. Or not? Just because you may not swallow one doesn’t mean one couldn’t crawl in your ear and take up residence there, thinking it a wonderful, dark, comfortable cave that he and he alone discovered. This actually happened, and it probably wasn’t the first time this happened to someone. A few days ago I ran across this very story complete with a picture of the offending spider peeking out of a woman’s ear canal. (Google it. You won’t be sorry.) The woman in China had gone to the doctor after having an itch in her ear for five days. The doctor who treated her was probably delirious with happiness, because instead of ear wax or an ear infection, it was something cool! Luckily (for us) they were able to grab the camera and take a picture of the gentle little creature, who was just minding his own busi-ness, thank you very much. I would have to have been sedated and would never have slept again. Recently I was in our bathroom at home when I felt a tickle

on my thigh. I thought it was a stray hair and idly brushed it away and returned to my intense Tetris game. A few seconds later, I felt that same tickle and when I looked down, there was an enormous, wicked looking black spi-der ON MY LEG. Probably waiting to see if I needed a new roll of tissue paper. Whatever the case, there was much flailing of arms and shrieking. The Tetris game end-ed up flung into the tub, and I still don’t know where that black spider ended up, but Indiana is a safe guess. Fun fact: if a spider is going to scare the crap out of you, the bathroom is the place to be. We have spiders near our house in the bushes that make a cool, tunneled web. When I see these, I think of when I was growing up and my brother and I would make an af-ternoon of good times out of finding ants and throwing them into the lucky spider’s web. You’re welcome, all you Plainfield spiders!! At the corporate office we get daddy longlegs that creep in under the door, which I carefully coach into climbing onto a pad of paper and then throw outside where they will probably grow even longer legs. Jason of IT fame saved all of us from certain death once when he killed a huge, hideous spider, after declaring, “You know what…this spi-der looks like a biter.” I know spiders serve some purpose, like killing other bugs, but if they don’t want to end up under my shoe (or in Indi-ana) they need to stay out of my way and most important-ly—out of my bathroom.

Chris Cacciatore

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Pierce Distribution Services Company

Our C.F.O. Writes... Wellness & Pre-

vention Newsletter – January 2015

Each month Williams-Manny provides The Wellness & Prevention Newsletter to you as a service for distribution to your employees. Please find the news-letter attached. The newsletter

includes information on health, wellness, nutrition and disease. This month's topics include:

Flex Your Positive Attitude Muscle 

OUTER AISLE FRESH – Exploring Energy-Bar Options 

EATING WELL RECIPE – No-bake Easy Energy Bars 

GET MOVING – Mapping Out Your 2015 ‘Get Moving’ Plan 

FISCAL FITNESS – Before You ‘Sign Here’  

THE WHOLE YOU – Physical Health: Getting Through Outdoor Chores Without Getting Hurt 

THE WHOLE YOU – Emotional Health: Creating Your Own Happy Place 

HEAD ONLINE FOR MORE RE-SOURCES: Jan.hopehealth.com 

YOUR HEALTH MATTERS – Really Easy Ran-dom Acts of Kindness ISSUE INSIGHT – Spring – And All of its Activities 

The Employee Resource Center Website The Employee Resource Center brings together a collection of carefully selected, comprehensive health, wellness and financial websites that encourages employees to be more proactive about their health and lifestyle decisions.

Employee Resource Center Key Features . . . The Health Resources section features informational links on fitness and

nutrition, senior health, kids’ health, prescription drugs, emergency resources, health calculators, mental health, disease risk assessments, and health infor-mation from the world’s largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine.

The Financial Resources section presents articles about budgeting and saving, college planning, kids and money, taxes, credit and debt, retirement planning, insurance, investing, leasing vs. buying a car, purchasing a home and getting a mortgage, and making a will.

The Other Resources section offers tips about local volunteer opportunities, charitable giving, motor vehicle safety, vital records, and weather warnings.

The Employee Resource Center is designed for all age groups, and con-tent is appropriate for children and adults.

To log into the Employee Resource Center Enter: http://ercubabenefits.com/ Using the following credentials: Username: wellness Password: erc

Justin Yarbrough Caleb Curry Tiemyeyer Wilson Donna Hogan Michael Deberry Susan Lovett Benny Taylor Debra Isom Walter Hayes, Jr. David Miller Gabe White Calvin Wainwright Samuel Palmer Rachael Tyus Rachel Langley Samuel Martinez Margaret Haycraft Sarah Hinchee Atlas Gaddy Ann Littles Craig Mann Cynthia Wonzer John Bednar Brandon Spitson Anthony Long

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FEBRUARY

BIRTHDAYS

Name Day Plant

JANUARY

ANNIVERSARIES

Name Day Plant

Donna Oliver Brett Downey Andy Oltremari Jerry Hankins Capas Speight Randy Terrile John King, Jr. Anthony Lineberry David Frye Patricia Wallington Gerhard Jerding Lisa Finch Anthony Long Crystal Bates Latrice Dixon Jeffery Graves Violet Glenn Derek Ellison Patricia Dewalt Cedric Demoss Londell Currie Balinda Hairfield Robin Bonds Debra Isom Sylverine Barbee Maurice Arnold Walter Ammons Marcko Clemons James Phelps Sherita Young Justin Yarbrough Ralph Watson John Walker, Jr. Yvonna Turner Opal Treadway Cloudette Toomes Elizabeth Scott Teresa Scott Christopher Hayes Milton Powell Jacqueline Haley Kenneth Perry Brenda Pearson Tiffany Nelson Graham Moore Annette McKinnis Leslie Mayberry Rachel Langley Terry Johnson Eric Jackson Brittany Humphrey Mary Rucker David Wakenight Donald Manns, Jr. Tina Nichols

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Tony Chiodini