I entered Kroger management training on June 26, 2000. The first week was held primarily at the KMA office on Tri-County Parkway in Cincinnati. There were six of us in this particular training group: Jim Betas, Phil Stebbleton, Geoff Glier, Jeff Bour, Stephanie Johnson, and me. Besides me, Geoff and Jim are the only ones still currently with the company. Each day for the first week I made the long-distance trek from Fairborn to Cincy (which I now do every day) and our group was visited by a parade of employees who worked in the division office, each bombarding us with information. It was like being back in school - with huge binders full of notes and passouts.
At the end of the week, we had a pizza party and were given our store assignments for our training. I lucked out and was assigned to the Fairborn store, which is exactly two miles from my house. I was only at the store for about two weeks before I went on my two week vacation to Seattle and then Myrtle Beach. This worked out well, though, as we were scheduled to be in a different department in the store each week. During my vacation absense, we were assigned to be on the front-end, the area where I had spent the last 11 years already.
I well-remember these early days of my training, working with the store manager Bruce Ronsheim, and co-managers Danny Eyler and Don Childress. I had previously worked with Dan at Spinning Road - and he himself had just been assigned to this store. Don had not long before graduated from the training program, so he was new to the store, too, although he had trained there as well. Don and Dan were both very helpful, as was Bruce, despite chewing me out a couple of times for a couple of dumb things I had done. One nice thing, I recall, was that I was able to go home for lunch since I lived so close - a luxury that was pointless to get used to. After I became a full-fledged co-manager, I could seldom leave the store.
It’s always scary to be in new working conditions, but during the time I was there (around nine months), it became my new home. After I graduated from the training program in December, our zone manager Rick Madlinger chose to keep me there for a while, until another opprotunity arose in the Spring of 2001…
Up next: the Seattle convention…
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