Mark Winkelman: "I was completely surprised." (LinkedIn photo)
Corporate America can be cold.
Without warning, Mark Winkelman, president of Better Made Snack Foods Inc. of Detroit, says the company gave him the boot and replaced him with David Jones, a veteran snack food executive, Kurt Nagl writes at Crain's Detroit Business.
"They just came in and said they wanted to take the company in a new direction," says Winkelman, 55. "I was completely surprised."
He joined the company in 2005 and had been president since January 2011.
The firing came May 15, and Winkleman says he was told to leave that day, Crain's reports.
He has an MBA from Wayne State University and previously worked for Uncle Ray's Potato Chips in Detroit.
His replacement, Jones, 66, according to his Linkedin page, was executive vice-president of operations for 33 years at Golden Flake Snack Foods Inc. of Birmingham, Ala., which produces a variety of chips and other snacks. Before that, he was a product control manager for Frito-Lay.
The company announced earlier this month that it was breaking out into more markets outside of Michigan.
