It started with potato chips. She was young, maybe 11, when she learned that if she became a chemical engineer, she could create her own flavors, and not just for potato chips, but for any kind of food, and so, as they say, a star was born.

Not so many years later, Allie Njaa did go on to earn a chemical engineering degree, always with an eye to putting her knowledge and skills together with food, perhaps in the dairy industry. But it didn’t turn out quite as she expected. Instead of creating food flavors, she found an instinctual determination for solving puzzles, for fixing broken equipment, first at TetraPak where she mastered their packaging machinery, and now for NaturPak, a company so impressed by her thorough knowledge, unrelenting work ethic, her natural and productive leadership with clients, and her genuine appreciation and respect for her team of technicians.

“I’m never bored. I really enjoy troubleshooting on the floor, meeting with vendors, and working with people of who I am very proud.” Truly, Allie thrives on being a hands-on engineer, where she is forced to learn something new every day and enjoys a high-pressure environment where she needs to think on her feet and provide quick, immediate solutions. “I didn’t set out to become a packaging equipment specialist, but there is nothing I would rather be doing. Every single moment is a new adventure, nothing is routine, and I love it.”

Just as Allie’s workday follows no pattern, so does her life outside of NaturPak. She may not have used her education to concoct flavors at work, but she certainly does at home, where she spends a great deal of time in her kitchen, cooking. True to her nature, she uses seasonal ingredients and produce from a local co-op, so she is never quite sure what she is going to get, and even less sure about what she is going to make. “I like creating in the kitchen. Every grocery order is a surprise and every meal is unplanned.” Just like her work, she seeks her own solution, cooking without recipes and rarely cooking the same meal twice. “This kind of freestyle creativity suits me because it’s how my brain works best.”

Aside from cooking, Allie has two other obsessions in her life: Keanu and Daisy, her two rescue beagles. They even have their own Instagram account, where Allie posts photos and videos of the two pups so that her family and friends don’t feel spammed by beagle pics on her personal account.  True to her engineering nature, Allie estimates that she spends approximately 20 percent of her time with little Keanu and Daisy. “There are lots of walks, tons of attention, and, of course, a lot of treats.”

She is also intensely excited about NaturPak’s growth towards a future vision, and about bone broth, which brings Allie back to her educational roots. “It’s rewarding to implement systems for bigger companies because the process requires bigger thinking and better solutions to tackle the more complex processes we have to put in place. I’m confident in myself, but even more so in my team. As NaturPak grows, so do we.”