Employee Spotlight – Lori Knaeble
"It’s a great place to work, with great people, and I’m excited to see where we go from here"
In this month’s employee spotlight, we chat with Lori Knaeble, Accounts Payable Manager within our Finance Department. Lori is vital to ensuring our accounting processes run smoothly and keep flowing, all with a smile or a laugh!
What are some of the challenges you face in your position, and how do you address them?
One of the bigger challenges is ensuring that the team is happy and ready to work every day. I believe in keeping things lighthearted and even a little silly at times. It helps people relax and makes it clear that not everything has to be stressful.
How do you ensure the efficiency and accuracy of the processes you handle?
I test processes repeatedly. I’m not a control freak, but I don’t like to hand things off until I’m confident they’ll run smoothly. With new processes, I work through them until I know there won’t be any hiccups before rolling them out to the team.
What do you enjoy most about working in your department?
I love the people. They make it easy to come to work. It could be that’s just because they laugh at my jokes. I don’t know. But knowing that they all work hard, I don’t think there’s anything that one or all of us couldn’t manage to get through.
How do you foster a positive and productive environment within your team?
I keep things lighthearted. When I see someone stressing, it bothers me, so I try to relieve their workload or lighten the mood with conversation. I make it clear that if they need anything, they can come to me. In accounting, there can be stressful deadlines, so I try to minimize that wherever possible.
Do you find that your team responds well to your approach?
Usually, yes. My default approach is humor, which sometimes isn’t well-received in high-stress situations. But in the end, it’s usually appreciated that someone was trying to keep things calm and remind everyone that it’ll be okay.
How important is communication from the perspective of your role?
Communication is vital in any role, especially in accounting. Working with numbers and money, errors can range from minor to major. If we don’t understand something, it’s always better to ask questions until we’re certain we have the right answer. Going back and redoing things just creates unnecessary work, especially in our field.
You’ve been involved in hosting foreign exchange students. How has this impacted your perspective on other cultures?
Hosting exchange students has been an incredible experience. Before we hosted our first student, I rarely left Oklahoma, let alone the States. But opening our home and having conversations with people from other cultures was eye-opening. You realize that, despite cultural differences, we’re all very much alike. They like certain foods, dislike others, laugh, have fun, and enjoy cooking and sharing their culture with us.
We’ve hosted students from Germany and Denmark, and it’s broadened my perspective so much. We’ve already visited Germany and are planning to go to Denmark next summer. It’s been a lot of fun and has really expanded my worldview.
Who is Cisco-Eagle?
Cisco-Eagle is a unique collection of people who genuinely care about what they’re doing because they have ownership in it. When you see people working hard and knowing they have a stake in the company, it’s inspiring. Everyone is empowered to voice their opinions, and I believe leadership listens. The people on the ground—whether they’re servicing a conveyor belt, crunching numbers, or updating the website—know their work makes a difference.
These are the people who keep things running, while upper management decides the future direction of our company. It’s a great place to work, with great people, and I’m excited to see where we go from here.
Download our catalog
At Cisco-Eagle, we pride ourselves on being a single source for your material handling needs with a long history of performance you can rely on. Because we also believe in empowering our customers with detailed information and options, we’re proud to offer the latest version of our company catalog.
Download the catalog today
Evan Fleishacker is a Marketing Strategist at Cisco-Eagle. You can find him on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/evanf