Kitchen & Bath Business - October 2017 - 23

SPECIAL SECTION
Meet These Shining Young Professionals
The NKBA's 2018 Thirty Under 30 program will take place during KBIS in January, featuring 30 of
the industry's next generation of experts. The group will act as ambassadors for the organization
and provide their millennial perspectives on a variety of topics. KBB took the opportunity to shine the
spotlight on a few of this year's winners.

DAVID
PODWYSZYNSKI
Rangecraft Mfg.,
Fair Lawn, N.J.

David is the operations manager for the custom
range hood fabricating company. Over the years,
he has sourced such exotic metals as titaniummirrored wood grain and blue-mirrored stainless steel, which earned him a 30 Most Innovative Products Award from Beautiful Kitchens &
Baths magazine.

ERICA ILLIONS

Snappy Kitchens, Dallas
Erica has been a designer with
the kitchen remodeling firm - a brand of Kitchen
Design Concepts - for seven years. She developed a passion for community service and hosting
charitable events while she was in college, and she
was also a volunteer school teacher.

ASID, LEED GA
Green Design Center,
Waukesha, Wis.

Kelsey is the interior designer for her company
and is vice president of Non-Toxic Environments
(NTE),a non-profit that educates the design industry on environmental and human health. In 2015,
she collaborated with a local cabinetry shop to create a new line focusing on the health of the family.
How are you involved in the NTE?

How did you get the idea to partner with Swarovski?

It dawned on me that specifically in the kitchen, women typically add the final touches.
Jewelry immediately popped into my head
with the thought of diamonds, pearls, crystals,
etc. Swarovski was at the top of the list because
of the beautiful work they do. It was an extremely
difficult process to get in touch with the right
contacts, which was followed up with another
long process to get their approval and license.
We are now proud to say we are the only range
hood manufacturer in the world to adorn our
hoods with Swarovski crystals.

KELSEY HOLTZ

How do you give back to the community?

In college, I was in a sorority that helped me become more involved in community service. After
I graduated, I joined Junior League of Dallas, and
through that organization I volunteered at the
Perot Museum of Nature and Science, where I
helped kids in a robotic Lego competition. I also
volunteered at a children's hospital, and my job
varied from showing families around to spending
time with kids in the play room. I am now the
guest dog coordinator for a Pitbull rescue group
called "The Love Pit" and recently rescued my
own Pitbull named Storm.

Re_Purposeful is a social movement started by myself and a few local designers to eliminate discontinued samples and showroom materials from the
waste stream. Over the past four years, we have collected 129,000 pounds of carpet, fabric, tile, wood,
vinyl,etc.,and then we host an open house allowing
teachers, daycares, libraries, crafters and the public
to collect the materials for free to be repurposed. At
the end of 2017's event, we only had 2,015 pounds
of material remaining, giving us a 98 percent diversion rate. These remaining materials will be stored
until next year so nothing is thrown away.

What is it like overseeing a company?

What do you do in your free time?

I carry my F License, which allows me to coach
Youth Soccer, but the only coaching I'm doing
now is trying to make my girlfriend's niece into
a superstar one day. I have received much knowledge through my father who played professionally
in Europe along with my own experiences that I'd
love to give back.The kids are our future, and even
if I can help just one, that would be amazing.

What I like most about it is I get to see my jobs
evolve from demo day to the after pictures. Bidding jobs in excel and paying invoices aren't the
most glamourous aspects of running a company,
but it is extremely helpful to see how efficiently
things are moving. Managing my projects keeps
me on my toes, which I don't mind.There are days,
sometimes multiple, where I'm not even in the
showroom because I am going from job to job,
lining out crews, meeting fabricators for templates,
picking up drawer glides and taking them to another job, going to tile showrooms, meeting clients
to look at countertops - the list goes on!

PHOTO BY
OXFORD BOONE

Tell me about your new cabinetry line.

These cabinets are constructed and look just like
many other options on the market, but what
makes them different is the materials being used
to create them. We use only NAUF plywood
for the cabinet boxes and UV-coated maple for
drawers and shelves. We also use AFM Safecoat's
toxin-free paints and finishes. The seal created by
these products has been tested so that not only
do they not off-gas, but they seal anything being
released from the substrate.

Kitchen & Bath Business - October 2017

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