Douglas Machining Office Coordinator Earns Outstanding Achievement
Molly Adank has yet to reach her two-year anniversary as office coordinator at Douglas Machining Services. Yet, her hard work has served as an indirect substitute, and sometimes direct replacement, for one of the company’s most important people.
For her efforts, Compass Precision has named Molly the company’s employee of the month for January 2024.
”Molly has been terrific from her first day,” said Christina Douglas, one of two Douglas employees who share the general management role. “Her work ethic is outstanding, customers like her, and she is well respected by everyone in the shop despite her short tenure.”
Molly is the sixth Compass Employee of the Month selected at Douglas. She is the first since Shane Kreidermacher earned the honor in March 2023.
When she started at Douglas in April 2022, Molly filled the office coordinator role that Christina Douglas held for about five years. Christina received a promotion to co-general manager in April 2022 after her father and original company founder, Dan Douglas, retired.
“They needed someone to take over some of the tasks that Christina was doing before she became co-general manager – things that she wouldn’t have much time for anymore,” said Molly.
As Douglas office coordinator, Molly’s day-to-day tasks include a bulk of the company’s administrative work, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, customer service, shipping and invoicing orders.
Over the past two months, Molly has substituted for Christina in another manner.
The Douglas co-general manager gave birth to a baby boy, Chase, in early November. Christina has been working hybrid the past eight weeks, which has made Molly even more essential to Douglas.
Molly has performed more quoting and been more hands-on with customers with Christina not present as much as usual. Molly has also been key to ensuring communication isn’t an issue with Christina working remotely.
”Douglas Machining does not have a large staff,” explained Ben Kubis, Douglas’s other co-general manager. “Molly was already a great contributor and has stepped up even more with Christina having Chase and working some from home and part time in office.”
Molly gave a lot of credit to the company overall.
“Everybody works really well together on the team,” Molly said. “I’d say that Douglas works as a well-oiled machine, and it just makes everything go very smoothly.”
Prior to working at Douglas, Molly served as office coordinator at Kendell Doors & Hardware in Winona for seven years. She said she knew of Douglas years ago and met Christina through mutual friends more recently.
Molly added that Christina contacted her when she knew the company was going to need a new office coordinator.
Before joining Kendell, Molly worked for a decade in the assembly department at WinCraft.
Molly is originally from Bluff Siding, Wisconsin, which is right across the Mississippi River from Winona. Molly attended school in Winona throughout her childhood.
She then went to Minnesota State College Southeast in the school’s medical secretary program. Although she didn’t pursue a career in the medical field, the program’s administrative classes prepared her for the office coordinator daily tasks at Douglas.
In her free time, Molly likes to cook, attend pool tournaments, hang out on the river and spend time with family and friends. She also recently began to play a lot of golf.