Lori Tigner’s backyard is a thing of beauty, an award-winner actually. But the office is a happy place for her, too. She worked as an administrative assistant to recently retired Vice President of Refrigerated Foods Operations Donnie Temperley and now supports Clint Walters, who recently accepted the role. She does it so well, in fact, she was named one of the first recipients of the 2021 Pride of the Jersey award.
“Lori has been a tremendous role model of all of the Pride of the Jersey attributes over this past year,” Clint said as he presented the coveted honor to her. “She has regularly demonstrated all of our Cultural Beliefs and team attitude as she works behind the scenes to create organization and clarify communication among many leaders and plants.”
Lori came to Hormel Foods about 10 years ago. It was a perfect opportunity for the lifelong resident of Austin, Minn., the site of the company’s global headquarters. Her two daughters, KateLyn and Haley, now work for Hormel Foods, and her 5-year-old grandson, Colton, lives less than a block away. “It’s all about family,” she says.
I really love working with the team I’m working with. They make it easy to love what I do. We’re all in this together.
Lori Tigner
The last year has been challenging, but Lori is no stranger to hard work. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business from Southwest Minnesota State University a few years ago while working full time, completing three or four courses every semester. There were some evenings when schoolwork kept her up until midnight. “You just have to readjust your life,” she says. Lately she has been getting to know Clint better. He was named to his position in December 2020.
“It’s different learning a new boss while in the middle of a pandemic, but things are going well. We see eye to eye, and it’s worked nicely,” she says.
Lori likes to help things grow – literally and figuratively. Her gardening hobby earned her the distinction of yard of the year. At work, she’s played an important role in increasing collaboration and communication between workgroups and business units at Hormel Foods, a silver lining to the COVID-19 cloud that continues to hang over the world.
“Lori was asked to help Create Solutions and follow up on details of COVID communication, and without hesitation she would handle the assignments with ease. This is exactly what the entire team needed during a very challenging time of the pandemic, where there was no road map to success, and it took team effort to succeed,” Clint says.
To that end, Lori started twice-weekly video calls for about 140 team members from operations, engineering, quality control, human resources, communication and other areas. Now that processes are in place, the call takes place weekly, and if Lori has anything to say about it, it will continue long after the pandemic is a distant memory.
“We have shared and gotten so much information out of it. We’re all more of a team now,” she says.
It has indeed been a difficult year, and yet, Lori is happy with her life and more to the point, with her job.
“I really love working with the team I’m working with,” she says. “They make it easy to love what I do. We’re all in this together.”
