Team Spotlight

Our warehouse team works closely with our inventory and procurement team to manage the products in our warehouse and cold storage. Attached to our main kitchen, our warehouse and cold storage help us maintain inventory of our most-used products, minimizing substitutions and service disruptions. Let's meet the team who keeps our inventory moving...

Justin Kilmer, Warehouse Manager

Justin joined CKC Good Food as a driver in 2019, after moving to the Twin Cities from Sparta, Wisconsin. The job appealed to him because it was close to the family’s new home, and he thought it would be a good way to get to know the Twin Cities. He did daily deliveries for 5 months, until the pandemic changed how CKC Good Food served clients. When the company began taking in large quantities of shelf stable foods for bundled meals, he transitioned to warehouse work and bulk deliveries.

These days, Justin oversees the team of four that physically manages the flow of products in and out of the company’s possession. Justin worked gradually into his current role, learning a lot about CKC Good Food’s business, clients and product inventory as a driver and warehouse team member during Covid. He’s become well-versed in the company’s regular product rotation, servings in a box and boxes on a pallet as well as the nutritional guidelines for federal nutrition programs. Because CKC Good Food is very efficient at using a limited number of products in many ways, the learning curve was not as steep as it could have been.

Prior to moving to the Twin Cities and joining CKC Good Food, Justin worked for a family-owned grocery store in Sparta for about 15 years in a variety of roles.

In his free time, Justin loves food … cooking, eating, going out to restaurants and even grocery shopping. He also likes deer hunting, watching sports, and playing hockey, broomball and soccer.

Justin has been married 11 years, and has a teenage daughter, Brooklyn, and one-year-old twins, who keep he and his wife really busy!

Arturo Contreras, Warehouse Worker/Forklift Operator

Arturo is a veteran forklift operator – he’s been doing it for about 20 years! He started a few years after immigrating to the U.S. from his hometown of Mexico City. He started as a warehouse worker at CKC Good Food two years ago, when the company was still in South St. Paul.

In his previous forklift job, he was dealing with acid and had to work 12-hour shifts. He wanted a new, safer job when he switched to CKC Good Food.

When he’s not working, Arturo is watching TV at home with his wife or out playing soccer.  

Mike Hansen, Breakfast Driver

A retired law enforcement officer, Mike joined CKC Good Food two years ago after learning of the job from CEO Nancy Close.

“I was sitting around doing nothing,” Mike recalled. “I can do that,” he said of the job that entails loading and delivering breakfast orders to CKC Good Food’s client sites. He gets his summers off, giving him time to fish for walleyes on the St. Croix River with his son.

Mike served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 80s/early 90s, fighting in Desert Storm in 1991. After the service, he remained in California, where he had been stationed. He went on to become a police officer in Concord, a city in the San Francisco Bay area. He worked in the major narcotics division for 11 years, collaborating with the FBI, DEA and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to chase down major drug cartels. After a 7-year hiatus back as a patrol officer, he returned to the narcotics beat for another 5 years before retiring in 2018.

He moved back to his home state of Minnesota after retiring to be near his family and care for his aging parents. His wife, a Native American, had already lost her parents so he realized the importance of being near his mom and his dad and dad's girlfriend.

He and his wife have two kids: a 25-year-old son who works for the City of St. Louis Park’s Public Works Department, and an 18-year-old daughter, who is halfway through her associate’s program at Inver Hills Community College. She was an All-State gymnast for Eagan High School before graduating early.

Mike likes to deer hunt and fish when he has free time.

Robert Palsa, Warehouse Worker/Breakfast Driver

Bob has seen CKC Good Food’s exponential growth in his 14 years with the company. When he started, the company was in its old location in South St. Paul, with all the operations and offices in the commercial kitchen area that was about 1/10th the size of today’s commissary in Eagan. The company had secured storage across the street from its building a year before Bob started. It had one dock and no protection from the elements when loading a truck.

“Everything was so small then,” he said. “This (new facility) is great, way different. And the pallet jacks and forklifts really save the body.”

In addition to the new warehouse and equipment, Bob likes getting out of the building regularly to deliver products to various client sites.

Prior to joining CKC Good Food, Bob worked for a commercial laundry company and a recycling plant, fixed cars for a Lincoln Mercury dealer and also had his own business.

Outside of work, Bob fixes up his house he’s lived in for 37 years. He played softball competitively for 47 years and bowled in a league, until getting pinned by a forklift at a previous job. He had two back surgeries following the accident.

Bob has a 36-year-old son who graduated from Minnesota State University-Mankato and a 23-year-old daughter, a manager at Perkins in Roseville.

Jesse Sanchez, Warehouse Worker

Jesse was on the hunt for a new job when a co-worker at Academia Cesar Chavez, a CKC Good Food client, recommended the company, which was hiring at the time. He started as a driver in 2018 and joined the warehouse team when CKC Good Food moved to its new commissary in Eagan in 2022.

He spends his day moving pallets of food delivered by distributors for storage and pulling products for daily prep in the commissary.

Before working at Academia Cesar Chavez, Jesse was a manager in the order holding department at a wholesale florist. “I know a little bit about flowers,” he joked.

When he’s not working, Jesse loves cruising in his “old-school” truck. He loves cars. His dream car? That’s tough but he narrowed it down to a 1989 Monte Carlo SS with a T-top.

Jesse is married with two kids: his son just turned 7 and his daughter recently turned 2. While Jesse was born in the U.S., he is proud of his Mexican heritage, which traces back to Chihuahua, Mexico. He has a tattoo to prove it. He is fluent in both English and Spanish.

Jesse recruited his younger brother Jonathon to CKC Good Food. He works in cold prep at the commissary.