Title: Retired Owner and Chief Financial Officer
Company: National Employee Benefits Administrators Inc.
Location: Pembroke Pines, Florida, United States
Carolyn Cruikshank Day, Retired Owner and Chief Financial Officer of National Employee Benefits Administrators Inc., has been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Executives for dedication, achievements, and leadership.
Now retired, Ms. Day enjoyed a thriving career for 45 years running her company with her late husband, John Day, National Employee Benefits Administrators, Inc. She served as both the owner and Chief Financial Officer from 1972 to 2017, when she sold the company. In this endeavor, she was in charge of the company’s internal personnel of approximately 125 people across multiple locations, including Florida, Georgia, California, Texas, and Ohio.
Prior to these posts, as a junior in college in 1959, Ms. Day and her partner started “The Cellar”, an underground, basement-entrance pizza restaurant, becoming the first pizza restaurant in a two-college town. In this cowboy city of Emporia, Kansas, they served steaks, pasta, sandwiches, basket burgers, and pizzas. They were considered the pioneers of pizza delivery. As time progressed, they opened a pizza delivery station down the street to handle all the deliveries; their competitor was a now-famous pizza chain that thought their delivery service was unnecessary.
Then, “Shadrack’s,” a sandwich bar selling hoagies, sandwiches, salads, and pizza, was born. From there, they opened a full-service restaurant called “Mutt & Jeff’s.” As she continued her college education, Ms. Day went on to get married to her first husband and had her daughter, Suzie. In 1963, she graduated from College of Emporia, they sold the restaurants and moved to Topeka, Kansas. After parting ways with her first husband, Ms. Day started a short career as a real estate agent.
In 1967, Ms. Day walked into Macy’s and said she wanted to be their decorator; she ended up becoming the department manager and then was promoted to head buyer for 11 Macy’s stores in Kansas City, Missouri until 1971. During that time, she met her husband, John, and eventually they married and moved to Denver, Colorado. John was working in the insurance industry and she gradually learned about the business from him; in fact, she credits him with being her role model and supporting her. This led them to Miami Beach, where they founded their own company, National Employee Benefits Administrators Inc., in 1972. Their first office was located in Doral, Florida, and then they moved the corporate office to Pembroke Pines, Florida, where it remains today.
Ms. Day is involved with the scholarship committee of the College of Emporia, which gives small scholarships to the relatives of past alumni. She donates to the College of Emporia Scholarship and has personally sponsored other individuals with their college expenses, aside from College of Emporia. She considers putting her students through college to be her most significant personal achievement and takes pride in having helped students with financial assistance to further their education. She took a quote from her father, Chet Cruikshank, and held it close to her heart, and made it her motto: “I can give you your education and it’s the only thing that nobody can take away from you.” In her spare time, Ms. Day enjoys golf, puzzles, interior decorating, working with animals, travelling with her daughter, playing with her “grand-puppies”, and lunch!
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