Paint store employee discusses duties, unusual requests

Mardi Suhs | Cadillac News Holly Kubiak demonstrates how she is able to custom match colors on the Sherwin-Williams computerized system.

CADILLAC - Holly Kubiak grew up in Cadillac and was active in sports at Cadillac High School. However, she said that college was not an option.

“There were so many in our family,” she said. “I grew up in a home with 15 kids and we needed to go out and get a job and start working.”

But Kubiak pointed out that the lessons she learned in a large family have helped her do well in her career.

“It was always a group effort,” she said of her upbringing. “That why I do well with groups and working here. I am a team player.”

Fourteen years ago, when her daughter was in high school, Kubiak applied for a part-time job at Sherwin-Williams. Six months later she became a full-time employee. And two years after that, Kubiak became part of the management team.

Married to husband Mike for 28 years, her daughter graduated from CMU and is pursuing her career in Chicago.

€What are your responsibilities?

I do a lot of scheduling, inventory and taking care of priority No. 1, our customers. We help the customers get the right product because there are different applications for different situations. You don't want paint failure because that is costly to the company.

€What is your favorite part of this job?

I like helping the customers and meeting people.

€What are the design trends in paint and wall covering?

There's a lot of decorative painting going on. Wallpaper has slowed down and is not as strong as it was in the past. Everything was so neutral for years. Now everybody is coming in and they want the colors and the contrast.

€These bold colors take a good eye. Do you help pick wall colors?

Most people know what color tones they want but you have to help them get into the right shade. But 99 percent have a good sense of what they are after.

€What is the biggest mistake a do-it-yourself painter makes?

Not preparing their surfaces - we can't stress that enough. They need to clean it up, sand or whatever it requires. People like to skip over that. There are a lot of questions we ask about their surfaces and what they are attempting to paint to make sure they have good results.

€What is the most unusual project you have helped with?

You get people wanting to paint water containers or something that needs specialty coatings. If they are painting a tank on the inside, like at a water treatment plant, you don't want that paint to go into the water treatment system.

In those situations we get a rep involved. Tim Stahlecker, our manger, is good about going out and checking on jobs and making sure people get headed in the right direction.

€You came here to work part time and now you are a manager. You seem to enjoy this career.

I do love my job. I like the multi-tasking. Everything is always a surprise. You never know what kind of situation or what kind of person will walk through the door. You have to have a knack for customers.