New home construction site/John Disney/ALM

Huttig Building Products' general counsel and corporate secretary, Rebecca Kujawa, is leaving the company at the end of the month.

The St. Louis-based millwork and building products distributor reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Dec. 31 that Kujawa had ceased being an executive officer at Huttig and would step down as GC and secretary on Jan. 31. Afterward, she is expected to provide consulting services to Huttig, according to the SEC filing.

The reason for Kujawa's forthcoming departure was unclear and attempts to speak with a spokeswoman for Huttig were not immediately successful.

Kujawa joined Huttig in 2014 as a vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. She was promoted to senior vice president supply chain and GC in January 2018. She was a consultant to the company from January 2014 through April 2016, according to a proxy statement. She previously served as vice president and GC-Asia and trading for the Peabody Energy Corp., which also is headquartered in St. Louis and mines, sells and distributes coal for the private sector. 

Before she went in-house, Kujawa was an associate with Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, which became Husch Blackwell last year when the law firm merged with Husch & Eppenberger. She also had a stint as an appropriations analyst for the Illinois Senate majority staff. She is a 2002 graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In 2017, Kujawa had a base salary of $250,000 and, factoring in stock awards and other compensation, was paid a total of $312,139. In 2016, her compensation totaled $645,327, which included a $100,000 bonus. She did not receive a bonus in 2017, according to the proxy statement. In January 2017, the Compensation Committee did not approve an annual bonus pool.

Huttig reported in October that its net sales for the third quarter of 2018 were $222 million, an increase of $22.4 million, or about 11 percent, compared with the third quarter of 2017. But rising expenses, including a $1.5 million increase in personnel costs, resulted in a slight dip in net income, which went from $1.3 million in the third quarter of 2017 to $1.2 million for last year's third quarter.

Huttig's president and CEO, Jon Vrabely, told investors that the company needs to “continue to improve our margin and operating leverage to achieve our working capital targets. As such, we are taking measures to right-size our inventory and expense structure to be more aligned with our current and future projected growth.”