Kelly Wisniewski

Kelly Wisniewski, vice president of administration at MTI Industries Inc., and her husband Jeff had to work their way up in the family business. When Wisniewski started at MTI in 2009 to fill her retiring mother-in-law’s shoes, she did everything from accounts payable to customer service to working the assembly line. Now, she wants the same thing for her boys, the third Wisniewski generation to work at MTI.

“I always hoped we would have a multi-generational business,” Wisniewski said. “I am a big believer in working from the ground up. It is hard to relate until you are in the different parts of the business.”

Kelly Wisniewski met her husband Jeff during their sophomore year at Southern Illinois University. Her first taste of the RV Industry came during college when she designed face plates for MTI Industries, Inc. When she graduated with an architecture degree in 1991, the couple moved back to the Chicagoland area, where they are originally from. While Jeff Wisniewski started working for his father at MTI’s Volo, Illinois, office, Kelly Wisniewski held a few architectural positions.

Wisniewski stopped working in 1998 to raise the couple’s three boys, two of whom are twins. Around 2017, Wisniewski said she started going to shows with her husband to put faces to all the names she had heard. A year later, Wisniewski helped open MTI’s Destin, Florida, headquarters, her proudest accomplishment at the company, especially because it is now where her sons work.

“The twins are working in the warehouse and they are learning from the ground up, just like Jeff and I did,” Wisniewski said from MTI’s Illinois office, though the family travels back and forth. She said their third son just graduated and is also showing interest in the family company.