Reginald Ross was named president of the School Nutrition Association (SNA) in July without the traditional fanfare that comes with the yearlong appointment, but as the first man to serve in the position since the 1970s, he had an agenda, even while taking the reins during the pandemic. Ross joined One On One this week to discuss the goals for SNA during his tenure. The biggest priority for the association was the extension of meal waivers through Aug. 31, 2021 to allow schools to serve every child in the new unconventional ways. This podcast was recorded mere hours before the USDA announced the continuation of school meal waivers through Sept. 30, 2021, even further than Ross and the SNA had hoped for. While Ross spoke about the importance of the meal waiver extension, he also explained how SNA is training educators and foodservice “heroes” (his word, though we have used the same phrase here at Food Management) to advocate for themselves at Capitol Hill and care for their students with a series of webinars and (when it was legal) in-person training. Ross also spoke about his own history as a former quick-service restaurant worker and owner before eventually joining the ranks of school nutrition in Charlotte, N.C., where he serves as a School Nutrition consultant for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and helps with 41 school meal programs.

Charles DeLeva, executive chef at St. Luke’s University Health Anderson Campus, talks about how produce from an organic farm located on hospital property benefits his dining program and his customers.

At Maryville College in Tennessee, General Manager James Dulin of Metz Culinary Management began meeting with university administrators back in early May to discuss benchmarks and health guidelines, and to develop a detailed campus dining plan. Procedures were adapted to correlate with recommendations from the CDC and state of Tennessee and were designed to maintain safe conditions for both the dining staff and for customers while providing the Maryville community with as appealing and convenient a foodservice program as possible. Maryville is typical of smaller colleges and universities, which have tended to be more open to holding in-person classes than larger public universities according to a recent analysis. Smaller schools also tend to have closer relationships between staff and students than larger, more impersonal institutions, and this intimacy has traditionally been one of the benefits of attending such a school. Unfortunately, it is also one of the potential casualties of a COVID-ravaged world that requires social distancing and touchless transactions, so the Maryville/Metz dining team has had to work hard to ensure that its connections with its customers are maintained as much as possible under the circumstances. In our podcast interview with Dulin, we talked about how the school’s dining hall and retail outlets have been balancing service and safety considerations in the month since classes began, the menu adjustments that this year’s COVID-imposed changes have required, the protocols the dining team established for students wishing to dine in and the school’s continued commitment to sustainability through the use of reusable takeout containers, among other issues.

Georgia has been in the news since early August when some K-12 school districts returned to school and were immediately closed as hundreds of coronavirus cases were confirmed during the first few weeks of in-person learning. Cobb County Georgia, the suburban county next to Atlanta, was not one of those districts because the district’s superintendent selected not to resume in-person classes until the county’s infection rate is 200 cases per 100,000 people. Now, that threshold has been met, and the district will reopen schools Oct. 5 for optional in-person learning barring any rise in cases of COVID-19. But, thanks to the USDA, students remaining at home to remote learn can still receive their meals on Wednesdays in Cobb County. The USDA reversed its earlier position on meal waivers and decided to extend summer meal flexibilities through Dec. 31, 2020, altering plans districts were making to live without the flexibility of the waivers. For Emily Hanlin, executive director of food & nutrition services for Cobb County Schools, that means looking at the program’s offerings, including a mobile preorder app that had caused some issues with Spanish-speaking families. Listen to the full podcast to hear how Cobb County is reopening schools and the district’s plan for the rest of the year. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcasts wherever you listen.

On this episode of One On One With, we find out how Teasley has faced the challenges of the last few months (he found a way to keep COVID-19 patients’ food hot while in disposable containers, for one). Teasley talks about the positive culinary culture at UNC Health, something he’s being careful to preserve. The Black Hat Chefs training program is continuing as a backbone for promoting from within by teaching bedrock culinary skills, so we talk about that, too. And Teasley is passionate about dispelling that somehow-still-persistent hospital food negative image. He also lets us know his impressions on North Carolina barbecue, as someone coming from Atlanta.

During a normal National Hockey League (NHL) season, the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex is a busy, bustling place where the league’s Pittsburgh Penguins congregate, practice and train. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic put a temporary stop to the 2019-2020 NHL season this past spring. When players around the league were allowed to re-enter their respective practice facilities on June 8 to begin Phase 2 of the league’s Return to Play plan, one of the many changes in protocol was that any meals provided to the players had to be individually packaged in to-go containers for out-of-facility consumption. All of this was a challenge for Executive Chef Geoff Straub, his sous chefs, Bob Schiffhauer and Chris Culp and Director of Dining Amanda Figurski of management company Parkhurst Dining, the division of Eat ‘n Park Hospitality Group that operates the onsite dining service for the Penguins players and staff at the Lemieux Center. They put together a plan that respected the COVID-imposed restrictions while keeping players fed with nutritious meals both during the lockout and after play resumed. We spoke with Chef Straub about the challenges he and his team faced and what they did to overcome it.

In this episode of One On One With, we’re having a conversation with Chuck Cundiff, general manager of retail, catering and concessions with Tulane Dining by Sodexo. At Tulane University, classes have just started, but places like Bourbon Street are still eerily quiet as the devastation of the pandemic marches on. Chuck found a cool way to partner a campus dining food truck with local restaurants that were suffering from the pandemic, and in some cases would have been completely shut down. We’ll find out about the diverse menu options that came about, from Egyptian food to Creole-Vietnamese and classic comfort foods like burgers and ice cream. Chuck also talks about growing up in New Orleans with a group of neighborhood friends who all ended up working in the food world, and then later pulling that community together again in the current crisis, something that could be even worse than the wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina. The resilience of the city is truly inspiring. Let’s hear Chuck’s story.

Leadership is always important but when a crisis hits, it’s critical. This episode, I caught up with Veronica McLymont, director of food and nutrition services at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Veronica shares her four pillars for servant leadership: being able to influence and inspire people; being a visionary; the ability to empower people; and being results-oriented. Veronica talks about how she works to build a dynamic and high-performing team, especially during the trying times of coronavirus. She cautions not to define leadership in terms of seniority or hierarchy, something that’s especially important during a crisis when a great idea can come from any team member. “Right now, we’re working on how can we achieve great things by extracting the full potential of the people we influence,” she adds. Her other point: Optimism. It’s a difficult time right now but making sure your team can see the positives will help bring everyone together to achieve the common goal: feeding patients and staff.

Early this year, a major Denver area public school district launched a pilot with Wholesome Food Services to test preordering of school lunches in its high school. Here’s what happened and what they learned.

Adam Weiss, founder of Pike Lane Gardens, worked for Restaurant Associates years ago and maintained a professional relationship with the company throughout his long career in the catering and restaurant industry. As a consultant, Weiss worked with RA, some major NYC restaurant groups and big names like Danny Meyers. Since the pandemic, Weiss and his wife have made their Woodstock, N.Y., weekend home their main residence and Weiss has been teaching gardening classes via Zoom that he’s decided to donate to RA employees from Vermont to Alaska who are furloughed and/or under stress as the foodservice industry has been “rocked,” as he says. He uses gardening as a meditation, and it’s so appropriate to get back to the earth during tumultuous times like this. Weiss hopes to engage with more corporations and groups with live Instagram gardening events and informational content on the Pike Lane Gardens blog.  “People need some positive energy…the stresses and uncertainties of what’s going on in our industry…it’s brutal,” he says. “But when you’re in the garden, it’s not ‘When I’m I getting back to work?’ or other worries…you are being present.” We talked with Adam to see how his classes work and to soak up more garden zen wisdom (and tomato tips!)