Kimberly Price walks the vast concrete bottom floor inside Amazon’s robotic fulfilment center. She scans work stations, looking for anything out of place. At one point, Price breaks away when she spots an unattended lift and pushes it under a pallet where it belongs.
Within a few steps, she passes some of her new employees, greets them and calls many she sees by name. By mid-morning, about 400 employees were on site working at the five-story, 630,000-square-foot facility; Amazon’s 10th fulfillment center in Florida facility.
The new robotic facility mirrors the one she last worked at in Tampa, where she began her career eight years ago at Amazon in a first-generation robotics fulfillment facility.
“I started as an area manager (a first level manager) and worked my way through four different steps to get to where I am,” said Price, who received her MBA from Florida State University in 2015.
Tallahassee’s facility is the most modern version of the e-commerce company’s fulfillment center network. The new facility offered an opportunity for Price to return to her roots, make a mark and be a part of economic development history.
With more than 1,000 employees, Amazon is now the city’s largest private sector job creator. Price said she plans to hire more employees for the company’s upcoming peak season for the holidays and Prime Big Day Deals in October.
Price, 32, commutes roughly 30 minutes to the facility from Wakulla County.
The married mother of three children ages 5, 4 and 1, said she’s excited about leading the Tallahassee team and creating a “community culture” where the company will assist with charitable causes or natural disasters, especially most recently with Hurricane Idalia and its impact on the surrounding area. In addition, Price said the facility has created partnerships with Second Harvest of the Big Bend and the United Way of the Big Bend.
She said her former facility in Tampa finished in the top five of all facilities in North America for community engagement. Price said she plans to bring that same approach to the Tallahassee site.
Amazon ignition:Tallahassee fulfillment center opens as city’s largest job creator
Most of all, she’s home.
“Having young kids and be able to come back home and be around my family, my siblings (and) they have kids, has been just a blessing and a dream come,” she said.
AMAZON IGNITION
Contact Reporter TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com. Follow @TaMarynWaters on X.
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