“Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.”

Another BIG day at the BIG 10 school! For those who don't know (because I certainly didn't, being a New Hampshirite), the "Big 10" actually refers to 12 universities in the United States, primarily in the Midwest,  whose athletics compete in the Division I conference...DISCLAIMER: if that is any way incorrect, attribute the error to my lack of aptitude for sports/sports lingo rather than lack of research.
As you know by now, I am fortunate enough to intern here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, one of the 12 biggies, along with : University of Illinois, Indiana University (where my intern partner, Kyle attends!), University of Iowa, John Hopkins University, University of Maryland (woo, New England!), University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, and Perdue University. 

Personally, I feel grateful for my 12,500 undergrads at UNH. I cannot imagine the stress of 44,000. Parking is bad enough, and I certainly would not want to experience the chaos at the MUB Dunkin Donuts on your average New England winter morning with that many caffeine rabid youngsters on the loose. :) I am however, grateful to be at such a large school for the NACUFS internship. If I can survive these 8 weeks working in their Dining program,  I can survive anywhere. If I got anything out of this Big 10 school, its amazement at the complexity of a system that controls this amount of bodies. It can be done, and it is slowly starting to make sense.

Day 2: Tuesday

Monday we met the dining facilities and today we met their parents! The fabulous people of DCS (Dining Central Services) who keep the facilities running, breathing, and diapers on.  After breakfast at Carson's Gulley, Kyle and I made our way on Bus 80 across campus to Gordon's Hall where we spent the rest of the day working our way from office to office to meet with the first 6 of the "BIG 10" personnel. I have never met such an array of characters, and it was wonderful getting to know each individuals background and understand just a little bit about what role they play in the building. This is something which I have wondered at for some time now. I have been working in the UNH Dining Halls for three years, going on four, and I have never had the chance to really sit down face to face with the back of house and administrative staff to understand the treadmill that not only keeps me fed as a student but provides me the materials and ability to do my job as a student dining associate.

First on our list was Julie Luke, Associate Director of Dining

With a big smile and good morning, Julie welcomed us into her office, dispelling any fears that may have existed for us interns in hearing the heavy words: "associate director of..." Presenting us with a small organizational chart that she had prepared for our meeting, Julie did a great job acquainting us with the general overview of the enormous Department of University Housing which we would be calling home for the next 8 weeks.

On this sheet, the chart went over each administrative position in the department including the head director of university hosing to the 8 major administrative positions we would be visiting today. It was a useful tool for beginning to understand how the team was structured and how the organization worked together.

It seemed to me that Julie's role in the organization focuses mostly around developing greater system efficiency. She works to develop system models for the department, reorganizing and restructuring layers of operation in order to consolidate responsibilities while breaking down hierarchical structures for better resource management and customer service. As I took note of her daily responsibilities, I started remembering a lot of what I had learned in Management just a few years earlier. To my dismay, I found myself wishing I had paid more attention to these seemingly useless theories. Although at the time management theories, flowcharts, and organizational charts didn't seem as if they would ever play a role in any of my future career options, it became apparent that Julie's role is really about enduring and fervent progress towards improvement, and that is not something to be ignored. It takes an understanding of how these systems work not just on a micro levels but on a level broad enough to get the big picture.

Like an anthill who's exterior is nothing more than a lump of sand, food service systems seem to have almost effortless movement, but there are people like Julie whose efforts keep that treadmill moving. They do not allow anything to stay static for too long. Something can always be consolidated, efforts better communicated and coordinated, preparations set into action, and customers served more efficiently and with greater cost and profit outcomes. For example, under Julie's guidance the university has increased their non-residence purchases by 25% in reducing their item markups.She also works to increase opportunities for student's wishing to gain experience in management. She oversees student employment models including: the assistant student supervisor, head supervisors, and student run facilities like the Flamingo Run convenience store as well as the development of the conference service department which has increased in popularity and allows the University of Wisconsin to provide outreach to Wisconsin state residents.

I admire her work towards progress. On a personal level at least, her lesson to me is to never accept inactivity. Each day is an opportunity to grow more and more skilled at doing something, even if you have already carved out a way to do it.

Next on our journey we met with Jodi Bodnar, POS (point-of-service) manager.

Sitting in Jodi's office surrounded by a large model cashier register and endless mountains of paper, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I soon began to gain a deeper understanding of her invaluable role in UW-Dining. Jodi's journey to her current position began as a student worker and head supervisor right here as an undergraduate at UW-Madison. When I asked her about what type of formal training had prepared her for this position, she spoke solely of the opportunities for learning which she had gained working as a student employee in Housing. Jodi explained enthusiastically that she moved into this position simply because she had the desire to learn, the ability to observe, and a passion for helping others. I found her attitude incredibly REFRESHING. She told us a story from her days as a student in which she would wander from room to room taking mental inventory of each product in their supply and its location. She loved to be that go-to girl for other workers and managers in a time of need. With this self-directed enthusiasm for her job, she found that being that always HELPFUL type of worker really made her position in the establishment invaluable and almost irreplaceable.

If there was anything for certain, I knew that if my computer ever died, I'd be calling Jodi. She is an IT master and her role in the organization has helped them establish an IBM system of registers for all of their establishments through the contracted food service POS systems company Blackboard-Sequoia. Jodi oversees POS register activity, troubleshoots any issues with the system,  manages reporting and charging as well as updating of prices and menus on a daily basis. She also work to develop new programs on the system to suit the needs of the dining facility including building their own functions to suit the needs of POS register transactions and menu planning for the dining staff in the back of the house. It soon became clear to me that the interaction between cashier and customer is a far more complex process than most people can even imagine. It takes an enormous amount of planning, updating, and regulation of records to make sure the facility stays operational. Any slip in accuracy can be catastrophic for inventory, accounting purposes and controlling food costs.

Beyond her computer abilities, Jodi was a unique type of manager in that she really cared and advocated for her student employees. She explained to us how accuracy of transactions in an a-la carte system of food service can be difficult to maintain when student workers only receive basic training on the register. Students have to be incredibly attentive to which category/subcategory of food they are selecting and any mix-up can result in an incorrect charge. We discussed how accountability in a food service environment is incredibly important. If managers do not hold their students accountable to their training, we cannot blame the student for making mistakes. Jodi really supports system reform from the top down, and I agree with her. Excellence in management is essential to the life of a food service establishment.

Bursting with the enthusiasm and knowledge from our time with Julie and Jodi, Kyle and I wandered a door over to the office of Angie Erickson, Assistant Director of Purchasing.

The first striking information I received was that as an undergrad, Angie had herself majored in dietetics and had received her RD. I was thrilled to learn of yet another opportunity in Nutrition that does not involve clinical or medical nutrition therapy. While I am open to these opportunities, I like to know that there are careers in nutrition that involve teamwork and a chance to apply management and organizational skills acquired through a dietetics degree that do not involve working in a hospital. I like to have that kind of freedom and leeway in choosing a career path.


True to my belief that dietitians rule the world, Angie is the woman who makes the final call on where all of the food serving UW-Madison Housing/Dining comes from, interfacing and developing contracts with major food vendors such as US Foods, Belger, Martin Bros. and Reinhart. She develops monster packets of scoring systems to rate vendors based on their ability to meet established standards of operation at UW-Madison. For example, she evaluates whether or not they are available to deliver at specified times, packing specifications, and equipment furnishing requirements.

I of course, being a Slow Foodie and local/real food advocate was very interested in what role Angie played in moving Dining towards a more sustainable and local program. I told her about our efforts at UNH to integrate the Real Food Challenge into the dining program as well as the Slow Fish campaign. I will have a blog post later on to go over the information I gather on UW sustainable/local efforts once I've been here a few more weeks and have time to investigate. Angie said she may take up on a visit to the Apartment Complex on campus where, AMAZINGLY, a diverse community of gardeners produces approximately $380,000 worth of valuable food for families living in the community in their 581 community garden plots. Again, more on that later...

We later got a chance to meet with Carly Smith,  Purchasing Associate for UW Dining and invaluable
right hand lady to Angie.

Carly works alongside Angie to make sure that orders from the chefs and unit managers are received and sent out to vendors in a timely manner. Now only is Carly the timekeeper of this entire send-out process, but without her, it would be very difficult for Angie, the chefs, Denise, and everyone else to do their job. She handles paperwork and does the tedious work to make sure that all of the receivables match up with the original order, that short orders have been made aware to the chefs for proper adjustments to menus, and that special events are planned for ahead of time with a stock up of items. If the lights go out, Carly is to the rescue with an entire hardcopy book of every item in the dining hall which she can call or fax out to vendors manually.

We learned that Carly's work operates centrally, meaning that she does all of the ordering/direct contact with vendors and invoicing as one person. This avoids the confusion and chaos that would result if every unit manager had to make their own order. One order is placed, one PDF is sent to all vendors at the right time, and all is right with the world.

I was especially impressed with the electronic efficiency of the system. Every system in management operates and relies on  some kind of electronic system. It makes it far more efficient and everything can be done almost automatically. I am realizing that I might need some sort of IT experience when I get back to school!

With more of a feel for how Angie and Jodi worked together to get food into the establishment through purchasing and to get the food into the students through POS service, Kyle and I moved on to discuss Nutrition and Allergen information with Denise Bolduc, CBORD Manager and Registered Dietitian.

Denise and her lovely student assistant, Kate.

Denise's job entails a lot of work with the CBORD, a system which she uses to organize food and nutrition information via NetNutrition and Bartender (a labelling system for individual menu items). The first system helps her to input menu and nutrition information that she receives from the unit chefs in the dining halls and which students can access to read nutrition fact labels and allergen information on every item served in the dining halls.

Today we began working on our first project with the help of Denise and Unit Chef at Elizabeth Waters Dining Hall, Kevin Hoblit. We were trained on how to use the CBORD program to access Nutrition information on the database so that we could check items for potential allergens.

In the next few weeks, we will be helping Kevin to develop a menu for the newest addition to Liz Waters, a station that offers allergen-friendly options that excludes peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish and offers more gluten-free options in the dining hall.

I am incredibly grateful to the individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to offer us some insight into their responsibility and give us a picture of this complex organization. I am especially excited to continue work with Denise and Kevin on the menu project. This is really a great opportunity to freshen up my nutrition knowledge of allergens and wheat intolerance (aka Celiac's Disease), problems which are very important to consider not just in my academic life, but in any future career which involves serving food to a diverse group of customers.