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Management In Motionby Nate Horwitz As most of you probably know by now, we've undergone a management change here at Honest Weight. We've decided to abandon the thrice-tried General Manager model - and go back to a Team Management approach. Some of you may recall that the last time we tried this it didn't last, at least partly because the members of the team felt that they didn't have enough time to get all their work done, and manage the store at the same time. Taking this into account, the Board and the senior management came up with a new position to help with some of the more administrative tasks. Various names for this position were tossed around, finally settling on "Operations and Administrative Coordinator" (OAC). For this important job we hired from within, choosing Cindee Lolik , who has been working every Wednesday as a weekly cashier since October 2001. Cindee comes to us with a wealth of experience in coops and the natural foods world. Cindee grew up in Scotia. A graduate of Burnt Hills/Ballston Lake High School, Cindee received her undergraduate degree from SUNY-Buffalo, where she majored in history. While there, Cindee also joined the North Buffalo Food Co-op, the first of several coops that she would join as she moved around the country. Moving further west, Cindee moved out to Boulder (Colo.), where she worked as a cashier and later assistant cashier manager at the Pearl Street Market, a privately owned natural food store. She next moved on to the newly opened Alfalfa's Market as the assistant front end manager. In an interesting job transfer, Cindee switched from the front end to the deli, where she worked as the assistant manager. After eight years with Alfalfa's and a stint at the coop in Colorado Springs, Cindee moved back to Buffalo for a short period of time to help her in-laws build a house in Eden (N.Y.), and joined the Lexington Food Coop. But the weather in Buffalo drove her back to Colorado within the year. Cindee next worked for Wild Oats, now the country's second-largest natural foods chain, with more than 100 stores. When Cindee first started working for Wild Oats, they had only three stores. The store she worked at was located in an urban area in Denver, in a neighborhood that Cindee says is "roughly comparable to the neighborhood that Honest Weight is located in, with a diverse crowd of customers." Cindee started out in the front end, later managed the grocery department, and eventually became the food service coordinator for Wild Oats before moving into the IT department. While working in IT, Cindee became head of "special projects," which consisted primarily of opening-up new stores. During her years with Wild Oats, Cindee either opened or did front end systems conversions in 40 stores. In August 2001, after eight years working for Wild Oats, Cindee and her husband Greg moved back to the Capital District, settling in Melrose on a seven-acre farm. Upon moving back to the area, she and Greg almost immediately joined Honest Weight. Cindee Lolik will be working Tuesdays through Saturdays at the Coop. Feel free to stop by and say hello. |
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