Wormtown Brewery has named former Tree House Brewing office manager Kimberly Golinski as its new general manager and president, according to Worcester Magazine.
Golinski succeeds Scott Metzger, who announced his departure last month from the Worcester, Massachusetts-headquartered craft brewery to become the chief operating officer at Maui Brewing. Her first day running day-to-day operations at Wormtown will be August 16, according to Worcester Magazine.
Golinski’s hiring comes after a tumultuous period for Wormtown. In late May, most of Wormtown’s ownership group stepped back from their roles guiding the company after several accounts of sexual harassment and a toxic work environment surfaced on social media.
Since mid-May, Notch Brewing production manager Brienne Allan and EmboldenActAdvance have shared on their respective Instagram profiles thousands of accounts from women who have experienced sexual harassment and assault while working in the beer and hospitality industries.
Golinski told Worcester Magazine she was impressed with the speed with which Wormtown responded to allegations and made changes within its ranks.
“They made changes immediately. They didn’t wait,” she told the magazine. “If there are more changes that need to be made, I’m the right person to do it. I’m going to get in there with a fresh view.”
Wormtown CEO David Fields, one of the owners who had to step away for a time, told Worcester Magazine that Golinski was hired more so for her personal strengths and characteristics, than her track record at Tree House or because the company wanted to shore up support from female staff and customers.
“When you meet her, she brings integrity,” Fields told Worcester Magazine. “She brings passion, knowledge and experience. She could have worked at a car dealership, and she still would have been a great fit for us.”
Prior to joining one of the country’s most popular taproom breweries, Golinski’s career included several positions at car dealerships, according to her LinkedIn profile. She joined Tree House in February 2016 as the Charlton, Massachusetts-headquartered craft brewery was burgeoning. The brewery’s output has increased from 13,000 barrels in 2016, to 41,500 barrels in 2020, according to the Brewers Association’s May/June edition of the New Brewer.
At Wormtown, Golinski’s tasks will involve the consideration of two different tiers of the beer industry: wholesalers and retailers, as Tree House famously does not distribute its products and sells the entirety of its production volume from its three Massachusetts breweries. Tree House opened new locations in South Deerfield in the western part of the state and in Sandwich on Cape Cod this year — projects that the company leaned on Golinski to guide, according to Worcester Magazine.
Requests for comment about Golinksi’s hiring were unreturned.