“It’s a just a wonderful company,” the sales representative said in a recent interview.
The median number of years wage and salary workers had been with their current employer was 3.9 years in January 2024, down from 4.1 years in January 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
When Zierolf started with Main Line, a Findlay Street supplier of industrial pipe-fittings, John F. Kennedy was president and Frank Sommers was mayor of Dayton.
After she graduated from Julienne High School, her father wasted no time with advice.
“I think I barely had my diploma in my hand, and my father said, ‘You better get a job,’” she said. “I went everywhere. I put in application after application. All they wanted was someone with experience.”
A local employment placement agency, Hughes Personnel, referred her to a secretarial opening at Main Line.
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
With some interruptions, including living two years in Germany with her Army officer husband, Zierolf has continued with Main Line ever since.
“It was just a wonderful place to work,” she said. “The first day I got there, I just loved it.”
“It’s great peace of mind,” Michael O’Brien, the company’s chief executive, said of having experienced employees.
“You don’t have to manage them,” said O’Brien, who has been with the company himself since 1973. “They know what they’re doing. They have a unique ability to not only think of the customer but also the company. It’s a win-win.”
Credit: Bryant Billing
Credit: Bryant Billing
The industrial equipment wholesaler has about 60 employees, with branches in Cincinnati and Lima. The company celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
Recently, the Business Insider website, which claims more than 100 million readers, interviewed Zierolf about her tenure.
“I’m still here because I really like the work and enjoy being busy,” she told the site. “I’m not someone who can just sit around. Most of my friends are retired, but they say they wish they had worked longer.”
The day after the piece appeared, Zierolf received a call from a reader in North Carolina. She received a postcard from a woman in Maine.
“She said, ‘I’m inspired by your story, but I’m still going to retire,’” she recalled with a smile.
Zierolf’s father, Louis Sedlock, was a production worker at what had been Inland’s Abbey Avenue plant in West Dayton.
She once had a chance to work for Inland, getting a nice pay raise from $62 a week to $300 a week in the process.
But she opted to stay with the smaller, family-owned company. Zierolf said she simply felt more comfortable there.
Main Line was founded in 1955 in a basement on Ludlow Street before moving to a second home at 905 E. Third St., where the Brightside event venue is found now.
Today, the company calls 300 N. Findlay St. home.
Zierolf has been famous for staying power for a while now. In 2015, O’Brien pointed to her as an example of why Main Line has endured.
The business has adapted over the decades, acquiring a competitor in Cincinnati and a warehouse in Lima. The company covers the Interstate 75 corridor from Toledo to the Ohio River and beyond.
“We’re still going,” O’Brien said in a recent interview. “We trying to grow the business as best we can. We want to stay private. We have no intention of selling out to the big boys.”
O’Brien’s sons, Andrew and Ryan, hold executive positions with the business today.
“Once they’re here, they stay,” the CEO said of his employees.
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