Confectionery Chemistry Provides Elements of a Tasty
Career for Kendra Schearer Pfeifer ’84
By Barbara Snyder Stambaugh
As a child, Kendra Schearer Pfeifer ’84 would tag
along with her dad. He would take her to work, show her interesting facets of his job,
teach her things that most kids on the playground probably didn’t know. Like
how to make nylon and how to bend glass.
“Dad taught chemistry at Dickinson,” Pfeifer
says of Associate Professor Emeritus of Chemistry William Schearer. “I loved
it. I can honestly say he was the best teacher I ever had.”
And when she enrolled
at Dickinson, the other students teased her about her penchant for calling him “Prof.
Schearer” instead of “Dad.”
After graduation Pfeifer turned her love
of science into a sweet profession. She’s
a staff scientist at Hershey Foods Corp., home of—as the old commercial jingle
goes—the “Great
American Chocolate Bar.”
What a job. Chocoholics everywhere, eat your hearts out.
“I’ve
been here for 20 years, and yes, there’s a lot of chocolate around,” Pfeifer
says with a laugh. The hallways in Hershey’s Technology Center, where she works,
have tasty names like Kit Kat Street and Reese’s Avenue. Pfeifer works on North
Cocoa Street, second office on the left.
“Oh my. Just down the hall from my
office is a drawer full of candy,” she says. “They
restock it every week. And the test kitchens are nearby. My office often smells like
cookies. It’s part of the job to take turns taste testing recipes they create
in the kitchens.”
Caloric detours aside, Pfeifer’s primary function is
to oversee and assist a team of scientists who work in the building’s 10 laboratories,
testing ingredients and final products to ensure the quality that has made Hershey
the No. 1 confectionery in the country.
Inside one of the labs, she stops at a table
near the door. “For example,” she
says, holding up an opaque container of what looks like chocolate dust.
“We’re
testing this for moisture content. It has to be uniform. Each level of a Kit Kat
bar, to name one, has to have the same moisture content or the water would migrate
to the lowest level. It’s part of how we make sure there are no soggy crackers
in the bottom of a Kit Kat bar.”
Her responsibilities are varied enough that
no two days are alike. She reviews specifications on ingredients and represents Hershey
Foods Corp. on trade-association committees. She develops new testing methods to
make sure the company keeps ahead of government regulations. Pfeifer tests potential
products and, as in the case of the nonsoggy Kit Kats, she monitors existing products.
She uses computers to interpret data. For a while, she worked with robots and automation.
She also completed her master’s in food science through the Pennsylvania
State University during her tenure in the land of chocolate.
That she ended up working
in food science was something of a surprise for her. As a Dickinson student, she
had interned for a drug company, and she was interested in that kind of science.
“But
I wanted to stay in central Pennsylvania, and … well, to tell the truth,” she
says, laughing, “I found that the money was better in food science. Does that
sound terrible? We work hard here, but we have a good time, too. This company is
like that.”
Pfeifer calls Hershey a family company, and a step outside her office
on the North Cocoa Street hallway provides a surprise link to Dickinson. Directly
next door is the office of Bruce Kiefer ’82—another staff scientist.
“It’s
kind of amazing,” Pfeifer says. “Bruce and I started here about
the same time all those years ago. This company has more than great products. It
has great people. I guess we just stay and stay.”
