NTH’S MASTER GARDNER IS RETIRING

A.K.A. ESOP Champion / Wellness Warrior / Payroll Fairy / Healthy Food Pantry Purveyor

After 24 years of service with NTH, Karyn Rekuc is embarking on a new adventure!  She will be retiring this month, and relocating with her husband, Dennis, to sunny Florida! As we prepare to wish her well in retirement, we reflect upon her many personas and contributions over the years.
 
We knew her first as our Payroll Fairy, a character she embodied every other week, sometimes in costume and sometimes with candy, as an extension of her Payroll Administrator position. Some even know her “big hammer,” jokingly threatened when some could not seem to get time and expense in timely or correctly.

For the past 10 years, Karyn has also been NTH’s Employee Benefits Administrator, our go-to resource for anything health / benefit related and designated as our Wellness Warrior. It was from this role that her passion for advancing employee engagement and NTH’s ownership culture found a new outlet. Always an active participant in engagement activities through the years, lending her event planning enthusiasm and skills to help on various committees, Karyn proactively stepped up to take more of a leadership role, becoming our ESOP Champion.

She sowed the idea of consolidating the Fun, ESOP and Wellness committees, largely consisting of the same team members with overlapping responsibilities and objectives, bringing them together as one Ownership Communications Committee (OCC). Since then, she has led the OCC in furthering NTH’s commitment to supporting the overall wellbeing of employee owners by expanding our wellness program. Under her leadership, and with support and participation of other committed team members, the OCC grew from one that occasionally hosted events to one that planned a year-long schedule, packed with educational activities and information, healthy eating and exercise information, fun games, on and off-site activities and more to engage employee owners.

From her proactive participation in a Wellbeing University, Karyn brought back to the OCC the idea of employee wellbeing as a business strategy and not just a program. Perhaps it is fitting that Karyn is a master gardener, for it was this seed planting that sprouted the concept of our Wellness Tree, and her nurturing and cultivation that grew the Wellness Tree and wellbeing program – to generate award-winning recognition for NTH’s culture of camaraderie, ownership, fun and inclusion. In 2018 The ESOP Association of Michigan recognized NTH as the ESOP Company of the Year; and in 2019, Karyn received recognition as the 2019 Employee Owner of the Year.

Her party planning and hosting skills were ever present through her active participation in engagement events, especially the holiday festivities and Company picnics, and even included the help of her sidekick, Dennis. Her love for gardening found its way to the care and beautification of our Northville entry, ensuring visitors and staff were greeted with a bright spray of the season. Her passion for wellbeing manifested in a healthy pantry in Northville for staff to enjoy.
 
Karyn leaves a legacy of ownership commitment, engagement and wellbeing along with multiple shoes to fill – OCC Leader, Northville Gardner, Health Pantry Purveyor. A testament to the extent of Karyn’s impact, filling these shoes will mean engaging multiple staff. While COVID has curtailed activities for the past couple of years, we are moving towards more in-person contact and an opportunity to again come together for  fun activities. Current OCC members are looking for new employee owners to help take up the charge to expand on the program and activities already cultivated under Karyn’s leadership. We are also looking for a new gardener to continue Karyn’s beautification efforts outside the entry of our Northville building. When protocols permit, connoisseurs of Karyn’s healthy pantry will have to decide on a new purveyor. 
 
We do not say good-bye to Karyn, for we are sure visits back to Michigan will include a stop in Northville or participation at an NTH activity. We do say “Thank You” for 24 years of service, and for the legacy Karyn has left behind.
 
Though COVID restrictions prevented us from planning an in-person event fitting our ESOP Champion and Wellness Warrior, we hope that you will take a few minutes to send well wishes to Karyn by leaving a comment below. These will be pulled together into a very nice memory book and sent to her in Florida.