John Hilker Email and Phone Number

Directed operational excellence of four plants with 775 associates running 9 roasting systems, 7 cocoa bagging systems, 10 refining lines, 10 drop lines, 13 molding lines, and 8 liquid loading stations. Responsible for the areas of Safety, Quality, Manufacturing, Engineering, and local Procurement. • Prepared, guided, and approved corporate and plant operating expense budget (labor, utilities, support, and repair and maintenance) totaling more than $130M. • Lead the allocation of the three-year capital improvement plan totaling $110M. • Reconciled sales demand with production plan by implementing capacity adjustments.• Conducted engineering project reviews to ensure the project plan was on track with the production and sales plan. • Established a corporate safety education series for the plants to use each month. • Championed SafeStart®, a foundational safety program for the organization, taking the first significant step toward a behavioral based safety culture.• Championed a reliability maintenance strategic project including an onsite maintenance technician training program. Separately added Reliability and Learning modules to the Redzone software platform further improving the Manufacturing Operating System (MOS) and complimenting the active reliability maintenance and employee retention projects.• Implemented a food waste reduction plan unlocking an additional ~2M pounds of capacity. • Established first pass quality (FPQ) teams at each plant to analyze production failures and implement corrective actions to eliminate recurrence of identified issue. All plants improved to greater than 97% FPQ within six months of implementation. • Implemented behavior-based interviewing to select talent at corporate and top plant leadership levels. Plants adopted this system. • Advised on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategy; Sustainability; and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives.

Directed operational excellence of four business-to-business manufacturing plants. Administered a $120M operating budget. Responsible for Manufacturing and supporting the areas of Safety, Quality, Engineering, and local procurement. • Implemented a MOS using the Productivity and Compliance modules of the Redzone software platform providing instant OEE feedback. The plants increased the operating OEE between 7 and 21 points with one plant reaching 76% OEE in 6 and another reaching 73% OEE in 12 months. Applied continuous improvement techniques for problem solving using the trends mined from the data collected within the MOS. Gained over 11.4M pounds of capacity through behavior modification. Identified production line bottlenecks setting capital and R&M improvement plans gaining over 17M pounds of additional capacity. Improved speed of action by converting paper checklist and inspection forms to electronic formats providing real time verification of compliance. • Eliminated liquid shipping delays in one plant caused by foreign material through a $250,000 process improvement. • Influenced improvements to poor performing plants, improving OTIF by 30%.• Established customer complaint teams and lead improvement tactics reducing complaints by more than 25%.• Managed the companies COVID-19 countermeasures. This team evolved from an emergency to a safety response and became the Return-to-Office team. Was a prominent presenting voice on Town Hall meetings. Established a companywide communication method for rapid notification of COVID-19 related activity.• Created plant financial accountability through detailed spend review. Discovery and education about the plant spending practices lead to improved plant financials. • Suggested, analyzed, approved, and managed capital improvement projects.• Analyzed the ERP function and recommended a $20M go forward plan. Secured it as a strategic project; hired an ERP Director; supported the ERP transformation.

Directed operational excellence in four CPG manufacturing plants across the U.S. The combined plants total more than 1M square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space having 685 associates running 40 mixing systems and 86 packaging lines to produce 505M pounds of product a year as 3000+ SKU’s. Administered a combined operating and capital budget over $100M. Respectfully transformed the long-standing relationships common in a family-owned business to an outstanding state of the art software-based production operating system. • Modernized productivity methods by implementing the Redzone software platform. It provided instant OEE feedback system within a social interactive platform. The plants went from operating at OEE’s below 40% to the high 60% with one plant reaching 76% within a year. Automated SPC on all production lines with one line capturing over $325,000 in giveaway savings in just 90 days. Applied continuous improvement techniques for problem solving of trends mined from the data collected with Redzone. Reduced over $2M in waste while unlocking ~76M pounds of additional line capacity. • Introduced and used behavior-based interviewing to select talent at each plant. • Implemented attendance and training systems decreasing dependency on temporary associates by 65%. • Drove a step change in the safety culture from being minimally regulatory compliant to one of enhanced risk identification and avoidance reducing workers’ compensation expense more than 50% over the last five years. Added SafeStart® as the foundation.• Continually educated the organization on a wide range of safety topics. Facilitated employee identification of safety issues for rapid resolution. Integrated simple and memorable safety principals into daily life. • Conducted detailed analyses of all plant spend accounts and maintained continual dialogue with plant leadership teams to monitor and favorably adjust costs achieving +/-2% of budget, volume adjusted.

C.F. Sauer sold the margarine business, Dean Foods, to Bunge North America in August 2011. Dean Foods/Bunge Sandston is a 95-year-old producer of retail and food service margarine. Lead all aspects of manufacturing branded and private label retail, food service, and industrial margarine and spreads in a 150,000 square foot plant producing 200M pounds per year with 147 employees. Managed an operating and capital equipment budget of $30M. • Orchestrated a step change in the safety culture using basic building blocks (SafeStart®, Near Miss, and Key Procedure Audits) culminating in a Behavior Based Safety system of management and continuous improvement. • Implemented continuous improvement teams making them a part of the plant culture.• Integrated Dean Foods into the Bunge Management System within 60 days. • Steered Dean Foods to monthly profitability by Feb 2010 reversing $6M in losses during fiscal year 2008. Used aggressive management controls without a targeted reduction in labor or product mix. Control programs included negotiated ingredient and material pricing, production efficiency and utilization improvements (OEE), yield, key measures, labor pool and rate, waste stream reduction and recycling, job combinations through attrition, rail freight, and scheduling. • Introduced and used team-based techniques for policy and problem-solving management. Teams rewrote the plant’s handbook, documented the plant’s HR policies and practices, reviewed and corrected SOP’s and cost cards. Teams overhauled the safety program, managed the promotion process, and created a seek & destroy culture of sanitation.

• Responsible for the start-up and management of a state-of-the-art 160,000 square foot facility with an expected 5-year capacity of 120M pounds per year with 350 employees. Managed operating and capital equipment budget of $30M+. • Designed and planned a new $49M plant. Applied AMI facility design principles during the 17-month construction process. • Redesigned the product vat, doubling capacity while cutting the cost by 49%. • Leveraged efficiencies, food safety, and employee safety to exceed USDA and OSHA requirements.

Managed 700 employees in an established food production facility. Maintained a safe and efficient operation of 5 mixing and stuffing lines, 8 smokehouses, and 26 CPG lines. • Created and managed programs that increased utilization, efficiency and safety while reducing errors, rework, and scrap. • Conceived and coordinated construction of a barrier wall separating ready-to-eat product from the rest of the plant. • Assisted R&D in product and process implementation, qualified new and evaluated proposed equipment.

Responsible for the performance, process improvement, and safe production of the Ready-to-Eat packaging department. Advanced food and personal safety initiatives through education and expectation.

Responsible for initiating and maintaining high quality standards with a staff of seven. Managed chemistry, microbiology, and formulation labs. Served as the administrator of HACCP system and liaison to USDA.

Respected processor of meat and meat snacks. Conagra purchased them in 1998.Ensured the quality of 5 million pounds of product per year. Managed a staff of seven. Wrote first HACCP plan for the company.

Managed a pilot plant and two employees. Invented and went to market with 16 new products. Installed a continuous smokehouse system doubling the production capacity.