Dana Chryst

Chief Executive Officer Jay Group

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Dana Chryst is CEO and owner of Jay Group, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania company that provides eCommerce fulfillment, contract packaging and supply chain services, and one of the few US third-party logistics providers with six decades of continuous operation. She is the daughter of founder J. Freeland “Jay” Chryst, joined the company formally in 1981, became president at 30 in 1991 and bought the controlling interest in 2000, taking over as CEO from her father. Her tenure has been defined by repeated reinvention: a business built on promotional materials is now largely an eCommerce fulfillment operation, and she has handed day-to-day operations to the third generation, her son Blake Dudek, now President and COO.

Career Highlights

• CEO and owner of Jay Group since 2000, when she purchased the controlling interest and succeeded her father.
• Became president of the company in 1991, at the age of 30, and hired its first professional management team.
• Joined Jay Group as an account executive in 1981 after college.
• Oversaw the company’s shift from promotional materials toward eCommerce fulfillment, contract packaging and supply chain services.
• Recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and named one of Central Penn Business Journal’s Pennsylvania Top 50 Women in Business, according to her company biography.
• Holds honorary doctorates from Millersville University and Elizabethtown College, according to her company biography.

Professional Journey

Chryst grew up with the business. Her father, Jay Chryst, started Jay Group in Lancaster in 1965, and by the company’s account she appeared in client advertisements as a child. After earning a business degree at Millersville University she joined formally in 1981 as an account executive and, in her own telling, spent several years learning the business before her father began to consider her for more senior roles.

Her move into the presidency in 1991 came abruptly. Speaking to LNP | LancasterOnline in 2022, she recalled that she was 30 and that there had been no discussion of a transition before her father began spending winters away; the company had devoted staff but no real management team, and her first job was to hire one. In 2000 she bought the controlling interest in the company and took over as CEO.

Over the following decades the business changed shape several times. She told LNP that the company had “morphed several times” and that “the more we specialized the more healthy we got”, and that the best decision she made was not selling the business during a hard period. Jay Group now describes itself as a third-generation, family-owned and woman-led fulfillment provider, with services spanning fulfillment, contract packaging, kitting and eCommerce management, and a client list that its own materials say includes Bosch, CertainTeed, iRobot, Johnson & Johnson and Lockheed Martin. The company reports recognition on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and as one of the Top 100 Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania.

The succession she began planning early has since taken effect. Her son, Blake Dudek, joined in 2012 and has been president for some years; she promoted him to chief operating officer in 2021, a transition she said “really accelerated during COVID”, when the business doubled two years in a row. She remains CEO, and the company names the two of them together as its leadership.

Outside the company she serves on the boards of Girls on the Run and the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce, on the Audit & Compliance Committee of Lancaster General Health and on S&T Bank’s Central PA Joint Advisory Board.

Education

Millersville University

BS, Business