Nice to Meat Ya: Rod Kamph

The first thing Rod Kamph does in the morning is open his planner.

Well, actually he wakes up, makes a pot of coffee and after the 20-minute trek to CAB headquarters in Wooster, then he opens his planner. Depending on their afternoon schedules, he may carpool with wife Ann, CAB accounting and payroll manager.

One morning they were driving separately when Ann saw him turn around, so she called.

He had forgotten his planner.

It’s weathered, surprisingly the black leather edges remain intact, but its contents are like precious cargo in mapping out the days ahead.

Rod is our resources procurement manager. Put simply, he’s in charge of getting stuff where it needs to be. On time. Undamaged. As soon as possible.

He’s got a knack for it, though, and brought plenty of experience to the job he began nearly 11 years ago.

“I’ve always been working with vendors, suppliers to cover production, filling orders, stuff like that,” he says.

If the concept of CAB is still new to you, you may be interested to know that at our core is a marketing company. That means to do our job, we have to send point-of-sale materials to our 17,000 partners around the world.

Seems easy enough, right? Not exactly.

“There’s not really a forecast or a future demand,” Rod says of the challenge to make sure licensee requests are met but not at the cost of depleting the present supply.

Cattlemen know that feeling all too well.

There’s a certain finesse to it, a dance, if you will, to meeting demand without shrinking resources. For Rod, it’s being organized, simultaneously thinking ahead and on his feet when it comes to the nearly 50 unique orders that ship out every day. Not to mention the three trucks that supply in-house inventory each week.

“I’m constantly looking at our item usage and working, going to meetings to hear what’s coming down the pike to make sure we’re covered.”

Working as the liaison between the sales marketing division and his valued warehouse coworkers, Luann and Penny, Rod credits his team for making the hectic tasks seem simple.

What do we see at the office? Rarely more than a flash.

“I have to make sure we have that stuff here, ready to go, on a moment’s notice,” he says. “That’s sometimes why I’m running so much.”

Taking innumerable walks to and fro, warehouse and main building, Rod’s days are fast-paced.

They factor in planning for annual conferences, specialist seminars, foodservice kickoffs and retail rollouts. Dividers are off to New York, sandwich wrappers to the Caribbean, shipping fire pits or life-size bulls, all become his normal routine.

A juggling act that seems to happen all at once, Rod is as calm and cheerful at the day’s end as he was at the beginning.

After all, he’s a provider – he likes the pressure, the planning ahead and the follow through of goals.

“It’s the fast pace, it’s working with our staff and our suppliers. I don’t know how to put it into words but I like that experience,” he says. “I love being able to fulfill, help.”

Thanks for allowing me to tell your story,

Laura

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PS–Want to catch up on the whole series? Check out these links below:

• Introduction: Nice to Meat Ya
• Day 1: Ashley Pado
• Day 2: Scott Redden
• Day 3: Jesse Stucky
• Day 4: Bridget Wasser
• Day 5: Amanda Barstow
• Day 6: Josh Moore
• Day 7: Ruth Ammon
• Day 8: Bill Tackett
• Day 9: Dan Chase
• Day 10: Danielle Foster
• Day 11: Eric Mihaly
• Day 12: Jennifer Kiko
• Day 13: Mark Morgan
• Day 14: Meg and Matt Groves

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