Kelly Kerner is the director of operations and the site leader at FlavorSum’s Kalamazoo location. He has served in operations leadership at the company since 2016 and is responsible for safety, quality assurance, manufacturing,  warehouse functions, sustainability, and continuous improvement. Kelly develops, implements, and maintains operational strategies to ensure the continued identification and integration of best lean-thinking practice into FlavorSum’s culture and daily processes. 

Prior to joining FlavorSum, Kelly was a continuous improvement manager and director of manufacturing at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Kelly also spent several years in the automotive industry working for Lear Corporation as an operations and improvement manager where he trained as a Six Sigma black belt.  

Kelly holds a bachelor’s degree in packaging from Michigan State University and an MBA from Wayne State University.