People

Some of the most innovative and out-of-the-box thinkers in the noncommercial foodservice industry.

People

Dave Richardson: Thinking Big

Picture a professional synchronized swim team 1,800 members strong, executing their routines with great precision in 303 varied locations spread out over a 312-square-mile radius, and you'll have a quick snapshot of the operation in place in the Houston Independent School District.

People

Phyllis Filgate: Cook-Chill Queen

In the New York metropolitan area, Phyllis Filgate, MA, RD, CDN, is known as the cook-chill queen—a sobriquet she's earned by running the challenging Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN 3) centralized commissary in St. Albans, Queens. This production center produces 10,000 meals per day to fill the needs of three integrated sites as well as two freestanding locations within the Dept. of Veterans Affairs Health Administration.

More than a decade ago, a handful of hospital operators in the U.S. took the bold step of replacing their traditional cafeterias with foodcourts. Even today, a fully nationally branded operation—especially in a self-op location—is not all that common.

It's been 20 years since Ann Terrell first began working for the Memphis (Tenn.) City Schools, following in the footsteps of Shirley Watkins, who went on to win the Silver Plate Award and serve as Under Secretary for Food and Nutrition Programs in the Department of Agriculture.

Deep in the snow-belt region of New York State, a white Nissan Maxima with Pennsylvania license plates pulls into the parking lot of 180-bed Lourdes Hosp. in Binghamton, NY, each weekday morning. The driver, Tony Ceccarelli, the facility's dir. of food and nutrition svcs., says he doesn't mind the commute one bit. Having been assistant director at the location for four years in the late 1990s, he'd left to serve as fsd at a long-term care self-op closer to his Scranton home, his wife and their two young children. But, when Morrison Management Svcs., the f/s contractor at Lourdes for the past decade, as well as hospital administrators invited him back as director two years ago, he happily returned.

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