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PLANT MANAGER, HERSHEY, STUARTS DRAFT
PLANT MANAGER, HERSHEY, STUARTS DRAFT
Virginia Business// August 30, 2023//
Sever, a longtime Hershey employee, was named plant manager of the candymaker’s Stuarts Draft manufacturing facility last year. He had previously worked at the facility, which produces nut-based candies like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Almond Joy, as its site operations leader. The plant, which opened in 1982, is the second largest of Hershey’s seven manufacturing sites.
Sever’s 20-year career with the Fortune 500 company has taken him to China and included time as a plant manager in Hershey’s Lancaster, Pennsylvania, facility. In 2018, Sever left Hershey to become vice president of U.S. operations for educational travel company WorldStrides and to start a small-batch confection company, Wild Blue Chocolate, with his wife, Jessie. He then held management roles at food and beverage companies Danone and Kerry’s locations in Virginia before coming back to Hershey in 2022.
Sever became plant manager during a movement to unionize the facility, which failed after 79% of the plant’s workers voted against organizing in March 2022.
