Katherine Trost was a mechanical drafter at age 18 at Panduit Corp., an electrical cable and component manufacturer based in Illinois, working in the wiring component division responsible for drawing layouts of cable ties.
"That was so long ago that we did our designs by hand, and my first big 'career' purchase was a drafting table. I remember when we started to use CAD [computer-aided design] around 1988 — that was a big advancement," Trost said. "The huge computer terminals would take so long to load the image that I could get up and go for a coffee before it could catch up with my keystrokes."
When she started in engineering, there were only four other women on a team of about 50 people. The women were Trost's mentors and "the trailblazers that I wanted to follow."
"This, along with the challenge of learning new processes and tools, kept me very interested in plastics early on. I loved taking a design from concept to approved design to production. It was always so interesting to see how the little component I designed fit into the larger assembly and data center," she said.
Although she is now on the sales side — as the director of sales for Aurora, Ill.-based Phoenix Closures Inc., which specializes in injection molded closures — Trost said she still loves being out on the manufacturing floor: "Is it wrong that one of my favorite smells is melted plastic?"
Trost manages the distribution and inside sales channels and works closely with distribution partners to train their sales and sourcing teams on injection molding, lining materials and general closure manufacturing. She also works with nearly all of Phoenix's cross-functional teams, including marketing, engineering and quality.
Trost is part of the National Association of Container Distributors' Industry Advisory Council. She was awarded the Phoenix Salesperson of the Year for 2020 in addition to other awards from distribution partners.
"One thing would be the fact that I defied the odds against success as a teen parent," Trost said about the mold she breaks. "I couldn't have had the career that I did or created my family without incredible support from family and others — including my teachers, coaches and employers — who had complete faith in me along the way. That support allowed me to enter a field that was heavily dominated by men, with zero hesitation."
