Thank you to Bill Miller Bar-B-Q for providing the photo location.
Sheri Kitchen
Celebrating 65 Years of Excellence: Redefining Cold Chain Leadership at ARI/Arnold Refrigeration Inc.
By Rudy Arispe | Photography by David Teran
For as long as she can remember, Sheri Kitchen knew in her heart that one day she would be a business owner.
“When some girls were playing Barbies, I was playing office,” said Kitchen, President and Co-Owner of Arnold Refrigeration Inc. (ARI)
With corporate headquarters in San Antonio, ARI has built a legacy of excellence since 1961 by providing commercial and industrial refrigeration to various industries, including food and beverage, schools and universities, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, and distribution, among others. ARI now has offices in Austin, McAllen, and Laredo.
“Our core values are ‘wise, driven, humble and agile,’ and that has kept us around for 65 years,” Kitchen said. “We’ve been agile in that we’ve been able to pivot as market conditions and demands have changed. We started serving primarily the supermarket industry, and then broadened our offerings to include convenience stores, distribution, manufacturing, and cold storage facilities, providing both refrigeration and thermal environment solutions, and grew the company and our reputation from there.”
The company president is proud of what ARI brings to the cold chain industry, including its expertise in pre-construction and design-build solutions to customers and partners, with a focus on building and maintaining lasting relationships as opposed to a one-time business transaction.
“We love it when our customers come to us with a problem they’re trying to solve,” Kitchen said. “We help them with the best solution for that project. We want to have that relationship for the life of their business, not just the project. We also perform retrofits and provide service, planned maintenance, and remote monitoring technology for their refrigeration systems.”
Her journey from administrative assistant to president spans four decades and has been an exciting and educational one along the way. Through hands-on experience across accounting and operations, she developed a deep understanding of the business and the grit required to succeed in a traditionally male-dominated industry.
“As a woman, there were a lot of times I felt underestimated,” Kitchen said. “The challenge wasn’t hostility. It was being taken seriously. I responded by becoming a constant learner, preparing for the task at hand, and finding the courage to speak up when it was intimidating. Over time, confidence and consistency built credibility.”
In 2000, Kitchen was promoted to general manager and then chief operating officer in 2010. She became a partial owner in 2017, along with her late husband, Guy, who joined the company in 1987. She became president and co-owner in 2021, when she and her husband and business partner Dean Lindstrom purchased the business outright from previous owners Ron Malek and Lee Livingston that same year.
Reflecting upon her journey with ARI, Kitchen recalled that she was always eager to learn, which helped her climb the ladder to success. “I’ve worked in every role in the office from accounts receivable and payable, to payroll, procurement, sales, and dispatching service calls. I worked my way up to administration, learning operations and finance, and how all the different departments work together. That was fascinating to me.”
As a woman leading in construction, Kitchen encourages other females to consider a fulfilling career in the trades and subcontracting industries. It’s why she participates, for instance, in the San Antonio Business Journal’s Mentoring Mondays Program, where she mentors women in their career fields and offers advice when they present to her with challenges at their workplace.
“Confidence isn’t knowing everything. It’s not being afraid to learn,” she advises. “It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t know.’ Influence comes from being consistent and how you treat people when you don’t need anything from them. Your reputation travels faster than you do.”
A current industry challenge, Kitchen adds, is a shortage of skilled refrigeration technicians, and ARI has a program in place to address their internal needs. The skill set for a refrigeration technician is high and requires them to know electrical, mechanical, and digital diagnostics.
“A lot of the shortages are a result of Baby Boomers aging out and retiring at a higher rate than we can replace them,” she explained. “So we are doing a lot of in-house training. We’re shifting from a mindset of hiring to building. We have an internal training facility. We’re working to train people to be refrigeration technicians. If you get it, want it, and have the capacity to learn it, then we’re willing to work with you.”
Kitchen is actively involved in the American Subcontractors Association (San Antonio Chapter), serving as President (2026-2028), and contributing nationally to the ASA Editorial Board, and using her platform to champion mentorship, workforce development, and inclusion. She is also active with the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce and the Associated General Contractors of San Antonio.
As Kitchen continues to lead ARI into the future, her goal is for ARI to be a world-class business, and with the company’s current business model and close relationships with customers and vendors, they are clearly headed in the right direction, while dedicated to improving the cold chain’s ability to feed and sustain humanity.
A R I
(210) 225-5493
1122 N Cherry Street
San Antonio, TX 78202
