Business Beat: Leinen taking over at York Cold Storage
There has been a changing of the guard at York Cold Storage as Joe Leinen has been named the new general manager as of the last part of September taking over from Matt Spanjers who is transitioning into retirement. Leinen previously served as the assistant manager under Spanjers.
Leinen is not new to the business as he has been with the company since 2005 starting part-time while attending York College.
"I started at the bottom of the ladder," said Leinen. "I started in the maintenance department doing whatever was needed."
Spanjers has been with York Cold Storage for the past 42 years and took over the general manager position from Adam Broughton in late 2008.
"Joe was my choice and my recommendation for the position," said Spanjers. "He knows the culture, the people, the customers and he knows the business."
York Cold Storage has been owned by Saria, a German based company for the past four years or so.
"I went through a two-day interview process with Saria," said Leinen who will be in charge of the company's 75 employees going forward.
York Cold Storage has been a mainstay of the York business community since the mid 1940's. The company gets daily deliveries of beef, poultry and pork products from all over the country and does some processing and then freezes the products for customers until needed. Most of the product from York Cold Storage is then shipped out to pet food companies where it processed into the final pet product.
The York Cold Storage facility can store 11-12 million pounds of product and approximately 1.6 million pounds are processed each week. Go down North Division Avenue and you will see many of the 20 trucks that are delivering or shipping out each day from the facility.
"I have every confidence that York Cold Storage will continue to thrive and grow under Joe's leadership," said Spanjers. "York Cold Storage has always worked closely with YCDC and the Chamber to be a good member of the community and that will continue with Joe."
"I want to keep the company growing," said Leinen adding, "The company has had such good growth in the past ten years. We want to continue that growth and provide even more jobs for the community."
Leinen is a York native and was a 2005 York High graduate. He went on to attend York College graduating from there with a degree in 2010.
He and his wife Alison have two daughters, Harper who is 3 1⁄2 years old and Millie who is 1 1⁄2. He is the son of Dennis and Denise Leinen of York.
Spanjers is looking forward to retirement saying he and his wife Anne will be doing more traveling in the future and there will be some golf involved when the weather allows. There is also a grandson to visit and he mentioned there might be a list of projects around the house that he will now have time to cross off the list.
YPS Foundation Hall of Fame event date set
YPS Foundation is sponsoring the 2024-25 Friends of the Foundation and YHS Hall of Fame Recognition event on Friday, November 8 at the York Country Club beginning at 6 p.m. The YHS Hall of Fame honorees for this year are Don Keelan-White '66 (YHS graduate and teacher) and Dana Hanna '69.
This year's Friends of the Foundation 2024-25 and past Hall of Fame honorees are guests of the Foundation and have received invitations to the event. Those who have not received invitations are invited to attend the event and will be asked to pay $10 at the door that evening.
All those planning to attend must call Jean Vincent at 402-362-6009 by Thursday, October 31, to make reservations.
The 2024-25 Friends of the Foundation campaign began in September of this year and will continue until June of 2025. The YPS Foundation appreciates the support received thus far and looks forward to new Friends during the campaign.
If interested in becoming a Friend, please contact the District Office at 402-362-6655, Ext. 4 for more information.
What the Heck:
We headed out west of town on Monday evening and got a glimpse of the Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. The comet will be visible in the western sky each night this week. The comet's orbit only takes it near Earth once every 80,000 years, so this might be your only chance to see it.
It will get dimmer and dimmer each day as it moves further away from the earth so if you want to see it now is the week. Unless you're going to be around again in 80,000 years.
Got to cross that one off the bucket list.
