__________________________________________________________________________________ Creative
Dining Services
Leading culture
Sandra’ s path to CEO began in the United States Army. She moved into food service, starting with a pizza delivery role after leaving the military.“ It was the only job I could get at the time,” she recalls.
From there, she worked her way up through operations and management.“ Before I knew it, I was preparing food and managing. That gave me the opportunity to go back and get my college education. Everything came together for this role, from restaurants and catering to business-to-business dining.”
That trajectory, from the ground up, shapes how she builds her teams today.“ We believe in earned autonomy. We’ re creative, but we also understand that nutrition matters and you must get the basics right.” When hiring for the team, the same approach applies. She looks for a particular kind of person.“ You hire motivated people, ones who want to work in an environment where we’ re cheering for each other.”
Sandra’ s approach to accountability centers on celebrating the standard rather than policing it. In practice, that means shifting how performance is recognized.“ It’ s saying,‘ What a great job you’ ve done. Look, everybody, this is the standard. This person has exceeded that standard.’”
One event tested everything, and the team delivered.“ The entire roof of a dining hall crashed in.” The team pivoted to mobile kitchens.“ For 18 months, we served food in a tent with 18-wheelers: one for hot prep, one for cold prep, and one for dish,” Sandra remembers. During that time,“ the team turned out some of the best food ever. That is the kind of grit they have. If there’ s a crisis, they run toward it.”
It’ s a culture that goes back to the company’ s origins.“ It all started with relationships,” Sandra recounts- the business was founded by two universities seeking a different approach to foodservice, a principle it has never moved away from.“ That’ s why we’ re able to customize and flex.”
Evaluating new contracts links back to the founding principles of alignment. Sandra elaborates,“ We’ re nimble, we’ re small, and we’ re about the relationship. We listen, learn, and build programs around culture.”
Next steps
“ We want to be 30 percent larger and grow from 16 states to 22. Our strategy is to grow near where we are so that we can support expansion,” Sandra confirms. The near-term priority is a clean run of openings.“ Over the next few months, we’ ll deliver flawless openings across independent grade schools, boarding schools, and colleges as students return, running parallel to senior living expansion,” she concludes.
After a career that began with a pizza delivery job, Sandra now leads a company that was founded on relationships and still runs on them: one meal, one team, one honest conversation at a time. ■
www. creativedining. com andra Lee foodchainmagazine. com 147