Hi Country Snack Foods welcomes new CFO

Jeff Hollingworth joined Hi-Country early this year as the new Chief Financial Officer and jumped in to join the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce as secretary around the same time.

At Hi-Country, Hollingworth's current project is to get everything entered into a new enterprise resource planning software that will help combine and share information across all of Hi-Country's departments.

"That's mostly what I do during the day. Other than that, I work with Steve [Fehrs] a lot on new products. We just added a spice room. We expanded our production facilities, so we're packing spices for other companies as well as doing our own," said Hollingworth, adding they're excited about the opportunities that opens up for employees.

"Most companies automate in order to get rid of employees. We automate so that the employees we've got can do more. It allows us to become a bigger company, more profitable, to offer bigger wages. We're trying to grow and expand and be community friendly and provide employment for people that's meaningful, that helps them support their families here in town so that Lincoln can grow and flourish. That's why they added me," said Hollingworth.

He added that as Hi-Country grows, providing some temporary housing, which had been discussed in years past, is still an option they're looking at.

"That's a big thing that we're concerned about. We're obviously interested in growing the business first, because there's no need for housing otherwise. We've really been trying to figure out what to do, and that's an option. To build the housing so people could stay there for a period of time while waiting for something to open up," said Hollingworth.

Before moving to Lincoln, Hollingworth worked for Thatcher Chemical in Salt Lake City, handling many of the day-to-day financial processes and accounting procedures. Thatcher has physical facilities across the United States, including in Glendive.

Hollingworth retired from his position at Thatcher, planning to travel with his wife to Spain.

"My son decided to get married. We waited for him to try to get married, and then we got trapped here in the United States and couldn't leave," said Hollingworth, referring to the border closures that swept the world last year during the pandemic.

The Hollingworths had already sold their house since they were looking forward to living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle while traveling.

"Way back at the beginning of my career, I worked in Great Falls with General Mills, and I made good friends with the Lees," said Hollingworth. These friends, who had an extra house available, reached out and suggested the Hollingworths come to Lincoln.

"We got involved here in Lincoln, and we thought, 'This is kinda nice. We could stay around here and work a little bit more,'" said Hollingworth, adding, "We ended up liking it here and thought we'd stay for a few years. We thought we'd try something more rural."

Hollingworth and his wife are avid travelers and are looking forward to trips to Europe and Central and Latin America in the future. They both speak Spanish, which he said opens up some travel opportunities for them.

"Both of us just love to travel. We have a trip to the Holy Land planned for October. My wife has always wanted to go on the Orient Express. Looking forward, there's a couple of top places. Medellín, Colombia. Montevideo in Uruguay. You have 30 years, typically now when you retire, before you die. We couldn't imagine just sitting around pulling up weeds," Hollingworth said, adding that, despite that, they are also looking forward to doing some gardening this year.

"I like ornamental plants. We also do vegetables and fruit trees and such. We're trying to figure out how to garden up here in Lincoln," Hollingworth said.