May 28, 2025
Thank You, Kathy Barri,
For over 32 years, Kathy Barri has been Elite’s receptionist and office assistant. In June, Kathy will finish her career with Elite and start a well-deserved retirement.
Although we don’t keep statistics on such matters, Kathy is our Elite person who nearly every visitor over the past 32 years has seen, met, or spoken with, which totals an impressive number of personal connections. However, her importance to Elite extends beyond our reception desk. Kathy is a hard-working, reliable, and caring person who consistently offers her assistance and lends support whenever and wherever it is needed.
In addition to answering incoming phone calls and registering visitors, she is the administrative assistant to our finance department and handles a wide range of front-office support tasks. Kathy helps ensure bills are paid, collates labor data, processes a wide range of business documents, and completes many other tasks as needed. For years she assisted the sales department by preparing proposals. She also managed registration and logistics for tradeshows where Elite was an exhibitor.
Kathy is the safety team secretary and has served as our back-up for shipping and report processing. She initiated and organized first aid and CPR training as well as on-site hearing test programs. She even helped to wind inductor coils used in customized RF filters that Elite built in the early years.
She is our go-to person for supporting a positive company culture. Kathy is our summer picnic organizer, plans the holiday parties, and is instrumental in hosting all the IEEE/SAE corporate events held at our Downers Grove laboratory. Whenever there was an administrative need, Kathy was always there to take on the task.
When asked, Kathy remarks with pride on Elite’s growth and her appreciation of the family culture espoused by the Klouda family. She has cherished watching colleagues grow their families, then seeing their sons and daughters mature over time into new employees. Kathy appreciates the company embrace of hiring siblings, relatives, and trusted friends who join and find meaningful productive careers at Elite. For Kathy and as with Elite, family is incredibly important, so this part of retiring will be bittersweet for both.
From all of us, we congratulate Kathy on a career well done. We will miss our great front-office ambassador, her warm smile, cheerful disposition, and welcoming character. Best wishes to you and enjoy retirement Kathy!