Kerry Coolen is the Manager of Research & Development at Cavendish Farms. Kerry began his career at Cavendish in the production / operations side of the business and has worked several positions of progressively increasing responsibility. In 2003 he participated in the first wave of Green Belts, lending support to various Black Belt projects before leading a Green Belt project of his own. Over the past year Kerry worked the position of full-time Black Belt, leading several projects aimed at reducing raw material and ingredient usages, as well as improving testing and operational procedures and improving quality. Kerry's success in this role translated into a 1.7% reduction in operational costs.

Beginning in November or 2005, Kerry began assuming the responsibilities of Research & Development Manager. In this position Kerry is responsible for the development of new products starting from initial conception, through design and testing and into full scale production. By implementing a Six Sigma rigor to the R&D process the goal will be to reduce development costs and cycle-time while consistently delivering products that exceed customer expectations.