W.W. Grainger Inc., the big Chicago area-based distributor of maintenance, repair and operating supplies, is looking for a new regional operations manager for Southern California.
The position was formerly held by Julie Kuhn, who is in the process of leaving her Orange County office for a return to her home city of Chicago. She was called back to the company’s corporate offices to be a project manager for Grainger’s efforts to promote customer service in the company’s 350 branches.
Kuhn said she will be working toward improving interaction between the company’s 8,000 field employees, in warehouses and local offices, and the 350 branches.
“It is something we have been trying to focus on,” Kuhn said. “Competition is getting stiffer. The differentiating factor is customer service and we need to set ourselves apart.”
As head of Southern California operations, Kuhn managed 250 employees. In her new position, Kuhn will not be supervising any employees, but developing solutions for customer service.
Grainger is hoping to name Kuhn’s replacement in Orange County by Feb.1, the date her move becomes official.
Grainger, best known as a catalog company before the onset of the Internet, has about 16,000 employees. The publicly traded company has trailing 12-month revenue of $4.46 billion. n
