After 30 years at Sherwin-Williams, you could say Kim Hollis was ready to paint the town pink on Friday.
That was her last day with the company in what’s been a colorful career.
“By nature I’m a worker bee so I will keep going,” said Kim of her future plans. “We bought an old fixer-upper a few years ago so I’ll probably stay home and work on that house for the rest of this year. After that, I don’t know. I joked with my husband that now I’m a housewife. I’ll see how I like it.”
Kim spent 10 years here at our local Sherwin-Williams before working for 10 years at the store in Tullahoma. Then she returned for her final 10 years as manager of our McMinnville store.
“When I came back to McMinnville, some people would come in and say, ‘I haven’t seen you around lately’ like I’d just been in the back room doing something,” said Kim. “I was gone for 10 years.”
Working in Tullahoma was fine, she said, but it can’t compare to working in the community in which you live.
“I’m connected to so many people here,” said Kim. “They may not know me by name but they know me as that woman from the paint store. I feel like I know so many people here and over the years you build a relationship with them. I’ll be busy working with another customer and they’ll wait for me to get through. They don’t want anyone else to help them, even if they’re just buying a gallon of white paint.”
Kim says she learned to match paint colors back in the day before everything was done by computer.
“I don’t know how that skill will help me the rest of my life, but I have it,” said Kim.
Longtime Sherwin-Williams employee Blake Alsbrook is the new store manager in McMinnville. He’s worked at the company for 18 years, including six years as manager of the store in Winchester.
Blake has a well-known local family, including wife Kate Medley Alsbrook and father-in-law Barry Medley.
“Working here in this store for the past week, it’s crazy the number of people who know Kim,” said Blake. “It’s also amazing the number of people who have a connection with Kate and with Barry. I can already tell I’m really going to enjoy working here.”
