Kelly Mundell

Walk us through how long you’ve been with the company and how it came about that you joined the company.

I’ve been with the company since May 12 of 2014, and I actually joined the company related to my outside hobbies. I was moving to Ripon, and I’m a volunteer with Rotary Youth Exchange. One of my Ripon volunteers knew from LinkedIn that I was an HR professional. When she found out I was moving to the community, she told me she was retiring and that I should apply for her job.

I was a little worried because at that point I had only worked in non-profits; I hadn’t worked for a for-profit organization. She said, “Oh, it’s just HR. HR is all the same.” So I applied and got the job, and I’ve been here ever since. I still work with her as a volunteer.

So you’re right at 10 years with the company. Congrats!

Thank you!

What’s your official title and can you talk us through your specific role and job duties? 

Sure. I’m the Human Resources Manager here at the Ripon facility. I supervise the two receptionists who also help in HR and with other departments. My role includes the entire cycle of an employee’s work journey from recruiting to hiring and benefits until they leave the company. I work with the managers and supervisors in Ripon on employee issues including timecards, time off, medical leave, disciplinary actions, performance reviews, promotions and transfers. I am also responsible for security training as we are a secure facility in Ripon. Along with Andrea Wilson, I manage the safety responsibilities of the Ripon location including leading the safety committee. I also get to cut the cakes at retirement parties!

Before you came to the company, did you work in human resources? 

Yep, for the Girl Scouts and I was there for around eight years.

What were your duties at the Girl Scouts?

It was the same thing, but I was the main person in charge. In my past roles, I’ve done a lot more strategy, work benefits, work compensation. Now I’m more specifically helping the people in the Ripon facility, because we have a corporate HR office.

Was it the Girl Scouts there in Wisconsin, just in the specific area?

So you probably don’t know this, but the Girl Scouts are split up into something called councils. I was with the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes. At the time I worked there, we had six different facilities, and we covered from central to northern Wisconsin and all of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

What is it about the human resources field that you think called upon you to devote a career to it?

I really enjoy the fact that I work with people, and I also do computer work. I like that combination.

Did you start your career knowing you were going to do human resources?

Not really. I have a double major, and one of them is organizational communications. The other one is in Scandinavian studies. My first job was at the non-profit Sons of Norway international headquarters. They are a fraternal benefits organization that does cultural things, as well as offering insurance benefits for people with Norwegian heritage.

Where did you study?

I’m originally from Machesney Park, Illinois, and then I went to college in Minneapolis at Augsburg. It’s now called Augsburg University. When I was in high school, I went to Norway as an exchange student, and then in college, I went to Denmark as well.

And honestly, I’ve worked in both my majors, and not everybody works in their majors. I never considered HR. It just came about by the different jobs I held.

What made you choose those destinations as an exchange student, and then continue on with that line of study? Was there a family background or anything like that? 

No, the rotary sends you where they want to send you. I was sent to Norway, and then I decided to make the most out of it and continue learning the language and learning more about that part of the world.

What memorable experiences did you have on those trips as a student?

(laughs) So it was in 1985; it was a really long time ago. But it certainly influenced me and made me interested in other parts of the world. I like meeting people from other cultures.

Can you describe to us a little about what the company means to the Ripon community?

This is a company that has always been family owned. So you know, we’ve been very invested in making our community the best place it could be, whether that was helping the schools with something that they needed or volunteering within the community. Our former owners followed that philosophy, and it has continued with Walsworth.

What do you see as keys for continued future growth and future success for the company?

From an HR perspective, it’s things like keeping a pulse on what’s out there and making sure our benefits and offerings match the needs of the current population.

With yearbook, it’s fostering relationships so when schools consider switching their publisher, they come to Walsworth. We try to emphasize yearbooks when we are out at career or job fairs, and it’s great when someone is at a school that works with Walsworth and knows our quality of work.

From the commercial side, it’s important to continue training employees so they can continue to get better at their jobs, which helps with better quality and less spoilage. We are working on updating and developing mentor packets for training here in Ripon as a way to ensure new hires are learning all they need to know.

Outside of work, what hobbies do you have?

So I volunteer a lot. Almost every night of the week I’m doing volunteer work of some sort. For the last 18 years, I’ve continued to be involved with the Rotary Youth Exchange. Our family has hosted students, and I work directly with the foreign students that come to southeast Wisconsin for a year.

I also have a husband and two adult children. One of them is married, and I have a new grandchild. My husband is a pastor, so I do a lot of volunteer work related to him being a pastor as well.

Is there a theme to the charities you donate your time and energy to?

It’s pretty much rotary and church stuff. I also just became part of the Ripon Chamber of Commerce.

Why is it so important to you to volunteer, to spend that amount of time volunteering?

For me, some of volunteering is about giving back to organizations, and some of it is learning things, learning new skills.

One of the things I learned a long time ago was that if there was some part of my job that I wanted to learn more about to advance myself, but it wasn’t offered within the role I had, it was possible to find a volunteer job where I could learn.

For example, I just took on being in charge of a golf outing, and I don’t even golf. But I know how to run events and I know how to organize things, so I wanted to use my skills to help with this event. Then I thought, I’ll learn about running a golf outing in case that’s something I ever need to do from a work standpoint, because lots of Walsworth people are golfers.

Are your children and new grandchild close to you? Are they in the area?

I live in Ripon, and one of my children lives in Fond du Lac, and the other one lives in Oshkosh, so they’re really both about 25 minutes away.

So the family’s able to routinely get together and see each other?

Yeah, pretty often. In between volunteer gigs. (laughs)

I mean, it does sound like that takes up a lot of your time.

It does. My husband volunteers a lot too. So we schedule time to go see the grandson, like this is our window. Can we come?

Do you and your husband like to travel? What do you guys do for fun?

Sometimes we travel together; sometimes we don’t. I’m going to Wyoming next week, and he’s going to Germany. We just have different things going on. But we do enjoy traveling together and going to new places.

We also like to eat out. We like to kayak together, when we can. But this year, we’ve only been out once.

I think I could maybe guess the answer to this, but is there a favorite vacation destination you guys have ever been to together?

We went on a 27-day trip to Europe, which was really ambitious, and we loved it. And by the end, we wished we could have kept going. It was great.

How long did you say – 27 days?

Yeah, and we went to eight different countries.

Where exactly did you go? 

Okay, I need to think about this. The easy ones to remember are Iceland and Ireland, because we just flew in and out of there. And we really didn’t see anything much but the airport. Then we were in France, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

That had to be an amazing trip.

I’m most proud of the fact we didn’t have luggage; we just had backpacks. We made it simple.

What was the highlight of the trip, if you had to pick one thing?

Probably the LEGO House in Denmark. It’s a museum. It’s not like Lego World, where there’s roller coasters and things. It’s a museum, and every level of it is dedicated to the different types of things that Lego does.

We stayed in a pirate-themed LEGO room.

What’s one thing about you that most people might not know?

That I like reptiles – turtles, snakes and lizards. I have a turtle. A lot of people don’t like things like that, but I do.

Have you always liked them?

I kind of grew into it. I was afraid of snakes when I was younger, and then I was determined to get over it. So I would go to zoos and pet snakes until I was no longer scared. Now, I’m good. My daughter-in-law has a snake that I like to call my grand-snake.

Oh yeah, what kind? 

He’s a banana python named Louis. So he’s just a little yellow snake.

If you had a personalized coffee mug, what would it say?

Okay, so I kind of cheated on this one. I have a little mug-like thing in my office with a quote on it (holds up cup). I’ve had this for a long time, and I like it. It says, “I’m fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world.”

Do you have a favorite book?

There’s a book series one of my sons and I read, called Galaxy’s Edge. Pretty much every book in that series is my current favorite book. It’s an ongoing series, so we’re still reading it.

It’s like a combination between Star Wars and the military. It’s much more militaristic than Star Wars, but it does take place in space.

Do you have a favorite movie or TV show?

For movies, I have a wide range of tastes. On one hand, my favorite movie is Trolls. I just really love it. But then I also like Deadpool. I don’t know, if I had to pick between the two, I don’t know if I could pick one.

What about a favorite meal?

My husband makes something called Swedish pancakes, and I love that. He could make that every day for me and I would be happy.

How are they different from what we consider pancakes?

They’re more like a crepe, but they’re sweet.

Do you have a favorite memory or maybe an accomplishment that you’re particularly proud of?

One thing I think about is when I was working for Girl Scouts, I had a boss I really liked. She said she was going to run the Bellin Run 10k and asked if anybody wanted to join her. And because I wanted to (impress?) her, I volunteered.

I was in my 40s at the time, and I had never run a long distance. I found out there was a training plan and committed to following that plan. So I did it. I was living in Oshkosh at the time, which is very flat, but the race was in Green Bay, which has some hills to it and much harder. I didn’t run the whole race, but I finished it. Then the next year, I trained better, and I ran the whole race. Since then, I’ve done a few 5k races here and there.