Have you met John? He is one of our premier Operations Representatives in the latest episode of “From the Yard – Kuiken Brothers Building Material Specialist Series.”

John (also known as JVB) started with Kuiken Brothers in September of 1991 as a CDL Driver in Fair Lawn, NJ.  Later on, in January 2006, John assumed the role of Operations Representative before later becoming Assistant Yard Foreman in November 2009.  After over 30 years of employment at Kuiken Brothers, John retired in July 2020.  However, he later returned to work in a part-time capacity in January 2021 as an Operations Representative.

While the majority of John’s tenure with Kuiken Brothers has been spent at the Fair Lawn location, his experience and know-how routinely lands him on the “Special Ops Team.”  Beyond Fair Lawn, John’s mark has been left on Roxbury, Emerson, and Newark.  When we built/remodeled those locations, John was responsible for the initial layout and work flow for our moulding inventory racking systems.

John also played an integral role in developing our “out-of-state” shipping operations and coming up with some of the best practices we still use when shipping moulding across the country.  When we first began that program, John would pull the moulding from stock and personally inspect them to make sure the pieces were in perfect condition.  His ideas and crating methods allow us to ship large skids of moulding across the country without the product being compromised.

John has served as a mentor to countless employees over the span of his career, including Fair Lawn Location Manager, Phil Cerne.  Phil recalls having many great conversations with John while working in the yard together, and considers John to be a personal mentor of his – both in family life, and professionally.

About From The Yard

From The Yard, is a new video series spotlighting many of our colleagues here at Kuiken Brothers – from sales, logistics & operations, millwork specialists, and our administrative team. We launched our first video in November 2021 and will post new videos every few weeks.

All of our roles here at Kuiken Brothers are interdependent on one another, and none of us can do our job well without the support of the entire team.

• Our sales and marketing staff work hard to grow our business and brand.
• Our operations team keeps our yards running smoothly for inbound product, customer picks-ups and deliveries.
• Our drivers deliver a large percentage of our sales activity every day.
• Our purchasing staff procures top grade materials from the best producers around the country.
• Our facilities and fleet teams keep our buildings and trucks running efficiently.
• Our professional administrative and HR teams keep our customer invoices flowing, our bills paid, and our employees safe – while offering some of the best benefits in the industry.

Ultimately, we’re all responsible for building relationships and adding value for each other and our customers.  The teamwork on display here at Kuiken Brothers to get this job done every day is nothing short of exceptional.  That’s not to say we’re always perfect.  Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, and we all know how frustrating that can be, but we work hard to correct those issues, and move on to get the job done well.

To our customers and future customers, thank you for all you do!  We greatly value the partnership that helps our projects moving forward. We hope you enjoy seeing some members of our team highlighted in this video series.

We’d love to hear your feedback! Please feel free to send us a note info@kuikenbrothers.com