Baking up something good

Pat Sarabia has been helping Diamond Bakery produce cookies and crackers for 21 years

Pat Sarabia Title: Production area supervisor Job: Coordinates and supervises production workers at Diamond Bakery

Pat Sarabia is one of those key people who makes sure you get your regular dose of soda crackers, creme crackers, animal cookies and other tasty goodies produced daily in Kapalama by Diamond Bakery.

Sarabia joined the company 21 years ago as a packer after she and her husband, Ben, moved back to Oahu from the Big Island, where she had been working for a macadamia nut company.

"My husband's job brought us back home," she said last week. "He was a meat cutter for Safeway, but he's retired now."

Pat Sarabia, 61, has yet to retire; these days she's a production supervisor at the bakery. She also has worked for the company in quality control and in sanitation, making sure the premises and equipment are clean and appropriate for their mission of producing food items.

Known as Pat Patricio before she married Ben, Sarabia is graduate of Waianae High School. She said her first job out of high school was as a cashier at the Waianae Store. She and Ben have three adult children -- two daughters and a son -- and live in Waianae.

Mark Coleman: What is your job title?

Pat Sarabia: I'm supervisor for the production area.

Q: What does your job entail?

A: I do a lot as far as the work force. I get our priorities together for the day and I get everybody to do what needs to be done.

Q: What does need to be done?

A: Well, on a daily basis we have our regular runs, but sometimes we do have our special projects that need to be prepped -- on the same days while we run our regular run.

Q: What would be like a special project?

A: Oh, like if you go into our stores, we have those jars ... we have those mini-jars and candy-bead jars.

Q: What is the regular run?

A: Like if we run crackers or creme crackers, and, with this special season going on, we need to prep for extra stuff, like the candy beads, and that takes a few ladies away from the regular line. So we have different priorities and we need to split the crew, and we have them working in different places.

Q: How long have you been the supervisor?

A: Pretty long time already. (Laughter). But you could say maybe the last four years.

Q: What was your first job at the company?

A: Actually, I started as a packer.

Q: What's a packer do?

A: They pack the products. (Laughter).

Q: Is that hard?

A: No, not really. It just takes coordination and common sense.

Q: What other jobs have you had there?

A: After that I did a little assisting with the QC.

Q: QC? What's that?

A: That's quality control.

Q: Anything else?

A: I took care of sanitation for a little while, and then I passed that over.

Q: What would that be like?

A: That is taking care of the facilities, making sure the areas are kept clean, and all that stuff -- bug control.

Q: What kinds of products do you help produce every day?

A: We have soda crackers -- low-sodium, transfat-free; and we have creme, coconut creme ...

Q: Crackers?

A: Yeah, these are all crackers. And we have ginger creme; we have whole wheat; we have a salty cracker, and we have the Maui sugar graham -- we have the regular ones and the cinnamon ones.

And we have a regular saloon, and junior saloon -- baby ones.

Q: And candies, too?

A: No candies, but cookies. Not to mention that we do make mini-cremes (crackers) also.

Q: What kind of cookies?

A: We have candy bead; chocolate chip; we have coconut, and coconut taffy; and we have Ruff N' Ready -- looks like a button cookie; and, of course, we have our regular animal cookies.

Q: What's the largest production of those various products?

A: It would be the animals. Another part of this animal is the Hawaiian animal, which is in three different flavors: the original, then the Maui sugar, and then cinnamon.

Q: Those outsell the crackers?

A: No, the crackers are still on top.

Q: You make all this stuff every day?

A: Every week. So every day we have different products come out. But on a weekly basis ...

Q: Who handles obtaining all the supplies to make these products? Are you involved in that?

A: No we have another person that does it.

Q: What's that person's name.

A: Andre Mous.

Q: You have special recipes, I would imagine.

A: Yes we do.

Q: Who makes sure you are following the recipes precisely?

A: It has to do with Bill (Geiss), the production manager, and Brent (Kunimoto), our boss (the company's president).

Q: Then your role is to manage the people in the bakery?

A: Mostly in the production area. I converse with the mixer to assure the timing is right, because if the timing is wrong, we need to fix it. We need to confirm with each other.

Q: Do you prefer the crackers or the cookies for yourself?

A: I prefer the crackers.

Q: Do you ever get free crackers or cookies from the job?

A: Well, not in that sense. I have to taste the crackers, so it's free in that sense. It's part of my job.

Q: What are your hours typically.

A: That depends on what we're making. On a normal basis, it's from 7 (a.m.) to 3:30 (p.m.).

Q: And when it's not normal?

A: If it's earlier, then we start from 6 to 2:30, and take it from there.

Q: Do you ever work at the bakery on weekends?

A: Very rarely.

Q: So they do operate on the weekends?

A: Once in a rare while. Mostly we just work Monday through Friday.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The people. It's like an ohana. I guess because you spend more than eight hours a day here, you just bond for some reason. You just end up bonding.

Q: Is there anything you don't like about your job?

A: It's OK. I've been here long enough now, so it's OK. You stay at any job long enough, you'll have a crisis, but it passes over.

Q: Does it get hot in the bakery?

A: Yeah, a bit. But you get used to it.

Q: Is it air-conditioned in there?

A: No. But we're fine.

Q: Are you much of a baker at home?

A: Yeah. I bake my own cookies. (Laughter) Half the time it doesn't come out right, but I do bake at home.