As is a yearly tradition, Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry honored their longtime workers this week with a retiree breakfast.
All workers who retired from the 114-year-old company in the past, and who are retiring in the near future were welcomed at The Venue at Union Square Thursday morning with a buffet-style breakfast, catered by Grow it Forward.
One of the retirees attending his first breakfast was Randy Kolbeck, who spent 45 and a half years with the company.
In fact, he told us that he was attending Lincoln High School when he saw a flyer advertising that WAF was looking for employees.
He was hired at age 17 and never looked back.
“I enjoyed working, cleaning up the castings they made,” he said. “Every day it was like a challenge to get the castings cleaned up and get them out the door.”
WAF also introduced Randy to his late wife Kathy, who was working in the front office.
He explained that the two were together for 32 years and married for four and a half years prior to her passing.
We asked Randy about the memories he formed during his time at WAF and he said he loved “meeting new people when you hire them. Working with them. Training them. Seeing them every day and talking with them.”
Also honored yesterday was Jenny Rabe, who spent 28 years working in the front office.
In fact, prior to her retirement, Jenny helped organize the breakfast that would eventually honor her and her fellow former employees.
We asked her why she stuck around for so long, and her answer was simple. It’s the people, including the son of founder Abraham Schwartz, “The original Milton Schwartz, my favorite person in the whole world.”
She also praised the leadership at WAF, saying “The company is so good to everybody. I mean things like this. It’s the little things that the company does for you.”
Jenny also was happy with how much she was able to do during her time there, noting that she worked in many different departments, growing within the company before ending her career as an administrative assistant.
As for her plans for retirement, Jenny says she is looking forward to helping plan her daughter’s wedding and maybe becoming a grandmother, but she also wants to get involved in volunteer work, especially at nursing homes.
Seehafer News also spoke with WAF CEO Sachin Shivaram who called the retiree breakfast one of his favorite traditions.
“Collectively, we have about 50 people here today who have 40 years of experience on average, each,” he noted. “That’s about 2,000 years of foundry experience that has built our company.”
Shivaram also noted that this tradition could inspire the younger employees by seeing “people who are still doing well health-wise and financially and enjoying their retirement because of all the work they put in over the years.”
Shivaram also noted that while he enjoys honoring their past employees, he is also excited to welcome 80 new employees following the completion of their major expansion at the foundry located on South 16th Street.
