Your centrifuge doesn't care who your service contact is. It just needs to run.
What does matter is whether the person picking up the phone understands what's actually at stake when your equipment goes down — the milk coming in whether you're ready or not, the production targets your boss is watching, the cost of every hour you're not running. Melissa Comeford does. She joined Separators in May 2026 as Vice President of Sales and Marketing, and she spent 27 years in B2B manufacturing learning that a service relationship is only as good as what happens when things go wrong.
A 27-year track record at Whirlpool
Comeford built her career at Whirlpool Corporation from the ground up — starting as a Market Training Manager in 1999 and working her way through retail account management, contract sales, new business development, and builder strategy before finishing as National Sales Manager for the Multifamily National Builder division.
That kind of track record doesn't come from good presentations. It comes from knowing how to show up consistently for customers who have production targets to hit and no patience for vendors who overpromise and underdeliver. She holds an MBA from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.
What drew her to dairy processing
The dairy industry doesn't pause. Milk arrives on schedule whether a plant is ready for it or not, which means centrifuge downtime isn't just an inconvenience — it's an immediate, expensive problem with a direct line to your production numbers.
That urgency is exactly what Separators is built around, and it's exactly what drew Comeford in.
"Downtime is the number one issue for dairy processors," she says. "And that is exactly what this team solves."
Her focus in the new role will center on making sure more dairy producers understand what Separators offers and how to access it — including same-day parts shipping from an in-house inventory of approximately 4,000 components, major and minor centrifuge service by technicians with decades of OEM experience, and remanufactured equipment for plants expanding into growing product categories.
What the right service relationship looks like
The analogy Comeford uses is a good mechanic. The best ones don't find things wrong to pad the bill. They tell you what needs attention now, what can wait, and then they show up when they say they will. That's the standard she's holding the Separators team to — and the one she expects customers to hold them to as well.
That last part is worth underscoring. For a dairy manufacturer a vendor needs to understand the pressure plants are under and respond with urgency. Whether that means driving back to the office on a Friday night to make sure a part is shipped when a line goes down, or answering a call and getting someone on the road in record time. That's the SEP way.
Separators serves dairy producers nationwide
One priority Comeford is working on early: making sure more producers understand the full scope of Separators' reach. The company services centrifuges across all major OEM brands and covers dairy processors throughout the United States — not just the Midwest.
If your current service relationship isn't giving you predictable scheduling, parts that ship the same day, and a team that treats your crisis with the same urgency you do — it's worth a conversation.
