A Culture of Accountability

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At Acme-Hardesty our name is synonymous with the phrase, “our word is our bond”. Building upon a heritage of more than 80 years, we deliver sustained profitable growth so we can live out our mission, “Take Care of Families”. The families that are part of the Acme-Hardesty family, include those of our employees, customers, suppliers, and partners and we fulfill our promise of care by living our Cultural Beliefs.

Through living the Acme-Hardesty

Cultural Beliefs, our colleagues make a personal choice every day to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary to achieve results. This is why we provide solutions where others may only see problems.

Caren Dres-Hajeski, Vice President of Personal Care and Marketing, recognized the impact of a clearly defined culture saying, “It [our six cultural beliefs] broke down the walls we didn’t even know we had.”

Jacob Stern and Sons Chief Human Resource Officer, Steve Kulchin added, “There is a sense of ownership around the culture. That it's not just something that's on a website. It's not something that the president speaks to at a Town Hall meeting, or that HR reminds people of…It's something that we live with every day.”

The foundation on which our cultural beliefs are built is Respectful Relationships. “And we live it. We really live it… we all talk the same language, we are all mindful of our communications,” Caren Dres-Hajeski described.

President of Acme-Hardesty, Jeff Kenton, anecdotes Respectful Relationships through a personal encounter when he first returned to the office, “I hadn't seen the guy that cleans up the office in a while. And so, I saw him this morning, and gave him a big hug. I was like, "Jim, it's been a long time." So, we care about each other.”

Equally as impactful is a cultural belief that has resonated with many employees. Team Won guides all employees to build trust and alignment while collaborating with everyone to achieve our shared goals.

There is no shame in asking for assistance in the workplace and our people thrive on achieving success together.

Our third cultural belief is Process Perfect which references our desire to maximize our efficiency in how we do things. If someone finds a better way to do a task that maximizes our effort and our success, then our company will make that the new way of doing things.

We optimize all Acme-Hardesty processes and align with these enhanced processes to improve our efficiency.

Continuous Learning , our fourth cultural belief, is the embodiment of how we believe and invest in life-long learning. At Acme-Hardesty we seek out professionals who display a natural curiosity to learn and grow.

We want individuals who invest in themselves and others through education, technology, and collaboration to embrace and drive changes we will encounter on our growth journey.

Jeff Kenton gave an example of Peak Performance recalling, “We recently had a fantastic customer service representative...But up until her review, it was not known that she had a degree in chemistry and an interest in moving teams...She's now moved to the lab, is doing an outstanding job, and loves what she does even more. That is what we want to create.”

Fifth is the cultural belief, Peak Performance. Everyone is accountable to execute their individual responsibilities in order to ensure the collective success of the entire organization. In the sports world, this is translated to, “The name on the front of the Jersey is more important than the name on the back.”

That is, we collaborate for shared success. While shared success is dependent on individual contributions, we celebrate our successes as a whole as well as own and learn from our losses.

Our final cultural belief can be summarized as Superior Service. In order to stay relevant and continue our success, we must never accept the status quo. We proactively seek to exceed the expectations of all stakeholders while communicating with our customers to ensure they are informed and delighted with the service we are providing.

Steve Kulchin goes on further to explain the high expectations that Acme-Hardesty has for itself, “we've built our legacy around being a very, very high integrity, highly ethical company.”

The steadfast focus on advancing our company culture has created a competitive advantage. Our people create our organizational culture, and our culture guides us on how best to create results.

Jacob Stern and Sons Director of Human Resources, Guy Kalbach, reflected on this commitment stating, “For one of the first times in my career, and I've had a career for quite some time, I know that feedback will be very direct, very honest, but it's also going to have empathy behind it. The six core cultural beliefs have served to strengthen the relationships and bonds between the Acme-Hardesty Team.”

If you had to choose one word to describe Acme-Hardesty, what would that be?

"So five years ago, somebody asked me the same question and I immediately said integrity because I knew that we believed and we cared. I think if I had to say it right now, I would say respect. And I would say from the top of the company to the bottom, we respect each other and we care about each other. It shows in the way that we communicate with each other and the way that we talk to each other. And it just takes a lot of tension out of what typically can happen in an office workspace. "

— Jeff Kenton, President

Tell me something you want people to know about Acme-Hardesty or remember?

"The culture that we have created as part of the organization and the people themselves. Acme-Hardesty is a place where we have a safe environment. The employees working at this company flourish, they strive for excellence on a day-to-day basis. They're responsible. They're accountable for activities, tasks, and what they're assigned to do. They make positive changes and make Acme-Hardesty a better place to work. "

— Rishabh Shah, Director of Technology

What makes you particularly proud to work at this company or hold your position here?

"I think because we consistently do what's best for our customers and we get a lot of great feedback about that. In a variety of different and challenging situations, we've always done the right thing to resolve an issue and create, what I would call, a true win-win situation. That's where Acme-Hardesty wins, and our customers win too. And we've done that over and over because nothing is ever perfect."

— Bryan Huston, VP Distributor Solutions & PU CASE

What kind of person would you say would be the best fit for an Acme-Hardesty employee?

"Someone who is proactive. If you see a problem, then it doesn't matter if it's in your group or not in your group. Own it, take some ownership of it, figure out a solution and just do it. And we like to empower employees. So, if you like to be empowered, it's another good reason to come work at Acme-Hardesty." —

Caren Dres-Hajeski, VP of Personal Care and Marketing

How would you describe Acme-Hardesty's culture?

"The thing that stands out when you think about Acme-Hardesty is honesty. We always deliver. It hurt us sometimes. We always endeavor to do the best we can. We're always trying to improve. I think people see that. We have a certain humility. We're not the biggest. We work very hard. We try to be transparent. And people have accepted that. And they like that."

— Phil Bernstein, Owner