Expanding Horizons

It is often said that working at Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Cove is like being part of a big family, and Laura McKenzie is one of the longest-standing members. “I’ve been with the company for twenty-three years,” says McKenzie, now the Senior Director of Manufacturing for the Arizona sites, who started when she was a college student at UW Madison. “I had a friend working at Sub-Zero who asked me if I would be interested in doing a Co-op there,” she says. “I met a bunch of wonderful people and never left!”

McKenzie, who graduated with an industrial engineering degree, began her career as an engineer across many of the products at Wolf. She worked there for nine years until the opportunity arose to move out of state. “The company had outgrown our Phoenix site and was relocating that production to a new location in Goodyear, AZ,” says McKenzie. “I had just gotten married, and my husband travels for work, so we thought about the warmer winters and the chance to see more of the country and decided to give it a try.”

Spending the next seven years in Arizona proved to be an invigorating chapter in her career. “Being part of the line set up, getting the building ready, and bringing new products into the Arizona location was an exciting part of my experience within the company,” says McKenzie, who drew from her tenure at Sub-Zero for the new position. “I think what helped me during that project is that I understood a lot of our day-to-day production needs and understood how we operate, so I was able to take what I knew from my manufacturing background and ensure that what we were building out was going to work for our needs. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot from it.” 

McKenzie returned to Wisconsin for a new round of projects in the engineering department, and then, once again, Arizona beckoned. “I have been in the engineering group for most of my career at Sub-Zero, but when the company said they wanted to launch a new way of managing our manufacturing sites, I took that opportunity.”

Now, in her new role, she is responsible for all of the manufacturing operations in the Arizona area. “I have wonderful teammates and managers working together to ensure overall safety, quality, delivery, and cost across the sites.”

“A lot of the same people I worked with are still here, and it’s made the transition the second time around a lot easier,” she says. “But there’s a lot of new faces now since we’ve doubled the size of this site.”

Her colleagues make all the difference to McKenzie. “If you asked me what I like the most about my job, that’s an easy one,” she says. “I love the people!” In her decades with the company, she has interacted with dozens of co-workers, and the consistent theme has been collaboration. “I’ve had a lot of great mentors and individuals that have helped me along the way, and also the day-to-day experience with employees on the shop floor and engineering manager staff. Everyone makes my job truly enjoyable.” 

Overseeing manufacturing in Arizona comes with a unique set of challenges. “No two days are alike. We deal with putting out figurative fires all the time, and that has always made the position so interesting.” McKenzie likes to take a proactive, team approach to problem-solving. “I want us to lay out a game plan of what we need to do to get through the situation as a group, how we are going to fix whatever has come up and continue to produce the highest quality poducts, safely and efficiently.” 

From managing the Goodyear location, where the company builds the Designer Series, to the Phoenix location, which handles service, parts, and sales accessories, McKenzie has her hands full. “Both locations are integral to ensuring all of our sales accessories and service parts are getting out to our different channels in the market.”

There are many hands helping along the way, she says. “We’ve got different leaders in all these areas, and my role is to orchestrate them to come together to ensure that we get our products to our customers.”

Another massive project that McKenzie is working on is the latest Arizona-based Sub-Zero location, which, at completion, will total more than 600,000 square feet of manufacturing space. “Rick Stanton is overseeing the Camelback construction project, and I’m closely involved with planning for the operations inside that site,” she says. “The expansion is incredible and will really help us in our production needs going forward,” she says.  

When she does have some downtime, she and her husband love to travel and see more of her adopted state. “The last time I lived here, we never made it to the Grand Canyon. So, we finally went there for a long weekend, and it was as spectacular as I imagined it would be.” The couple also enjoys golfing, walking, and hiking, often with their cuddly Westie, Winston, in tow. “I will admit, he’s like our baby,” she laughs. “He travels everywhere with us.”

Of course, you can take the woman out of Wisconsin, but you can’t take the Wisconsin out of the woman, and McKenzie stays true to her favorite hometown sports teams. “My husband and I both like sports, whether we’re playing or watching, and we are definitely big Wisconsin sports fans - no surprise there!”

Whether in the Midwest or the Southwest, McKenzie finds a through-line in her career with Sub-Zero. “If you have ideas, not only in design and engineering but also within the manufacturing sphere, they are receptive and supportive.” She feels that she has had incredible opportunities to try different things. “Sub-Zero has put me in the position to learn and grow and contribute to the company,” she says. “I just really love working here!”