A Celebration of Dedication – Chris Yoder Retires with 32 Years of Service

ONEIL President and Chief Executive Officer Hernan Olivas  (left) and Chris Yoder

Today we celebrate the retirement of Chris Yoder who recently achieved an impressive “official” service milestone of 32 years with ONEIL.

Chris comes from a family with a rich history with ONEIL. Since 1949 a Yoder family member has worked at ONEIL. That makes up 75 years of ONEIL’s 77-year history! ONEIL’s founder and namesake, Larry O’Neil was Chris’ great uncle. How impressive is that? Talk about deep roots with the history of ONEIL. Let’s break down this special family’s history with ONEIL:

• Wayne (father) 1949 thru 1988 (president/owner 1977-1988) (39 years)
• Jane (sister) 1968 thru 2017 (49 years)
• Chris 1992 thru 2024 (32 years)

The Yoder family has 120 combined years of service with ONEIL. Amazing!

You may notice the word official is in quotes and that is for good reason.

The Unofficial Years
Chris’ early years with ONEIL are truly early. His initial impact with ONEIL began in his childhood. During these formative years, a young Chris provided a variety of services ranging from collecting trash to mowing the lawn at one of ONEIL’s early offices. It was during these early days while both his father and sister worked for ONEIL that Chris’ work ethic was initially recognized and the foundation for years to come was laid.

The Official Years
We now move into Chris’ official years at ONEIL when he was hired in 1992 as a member of Dale Chance’s building maintenance team. Chris brought with him to ONEIL a myriad of experiences in various disciplines that proved valuable.

Chris’ evolution at ONEIL continued in 1993 when the technical writing group had an opening for a Technical Writer Trainee. Seeing this as the opportunity he was looking for, Chris applied for the position and was ultimately selected. By November 1997 he had progressed to Senior Technical Writer and found himself playing an instrumental role in the completion of a large project for Accessories Controls & Equipment Corp. (ACE). His efforts did not go unnoticed as ACE provided positive feedback and favorable comments about Chris.

Chris eventually became involved in other strategic efforts, such as the Oshkosh Defense PLS program, TRAK (off-road reach truck), and Eagle Compressors.

In the Spring of 1998, Chris left Ohio to head west. He moved to Portland, Oregon, to play a key role in implementing ONEIL’s Portland office on-site at NACCO Group (now Hyster Yale Group [HYG]) as well as leading the project. Chris remained in Portland until 2000 ensuring the project and office were successfully up and running. He then relocated back to Ohio to continue leading the effort from ONEIL’s headquarters. In 2002, ONEIL management named the NAACO Group led by Chris “ONEIL Team of the Year”.

Until the day of his retirement as Senior Program Manager, Chris has been instrumental in establishing numerous initiatives with HYG such as various enhancements for the Technical Reference Tool (TRD), service diagnostic tool viewer, and other application programming interface integrations. His leadership of the support staff creating the technical documentation for HYG resulted in staggering annual production levels, averaging 3.5 million pages per year created and processed through our ONePUBS system.

Please join us in raising a glass or a fork with cake and saluting Chris for 32 amazing and valued years of service with ONEIL. He will be dearly missed. Enjoy your much-deserved retirement!

Learn more about ONEIL’s rich history