Coffee Distributing Corp. announced the retirement of its president, Robert Friedman, after 43 years with the company. Friedman has been president of CDC since 1984, but worked there much longer as he grew up in the business his father and Uncle started in 1963. Through the years he was president, he led CDC through reinvention and new service additions, making the Garden City Park-NY based company a market leader in the Tri-state area.
"When I sold the business to Compass Group in 2011, I was hoping for maybe another 3 years before leaving the industry," Friedman said. "These have been years of accelerating evolution in our business, so my advice to my colleagues is embrace the evolution and you can prosper."
Friedman is planning to continue working through the end of 2018. In his retirement, he plans to stay busy with more handball, tennis and tomato farming in the summer. He also hopes to broaden his volunteer work especially now that he gets back the time he once used traveling to work and back. "I plan to relish the 2 hours a day I won’t be commuting," he added.
