GLACIER TRIP

I am living the dream... I am getting paid to learn and play.

Rachael and I just returned from a five day adventure to Glacier National Park. Of course, it was amazing! This blog feels like a display of how great my life is... I'm not trying to brag but I'm having a really great summer!

We drove through Helena and Great Falls and made our way up to the East Glacier entrance. There is a famous 52 mile long road, Going-to-the-Sun Road, that bisects Glacier into North and South halves. It passes through mountains and is very narrow. The road has been closed since last Fall due to a land slide/snow and they have been working nonstop to get it open by the summer tourist season, aiming for July 1st. Currently, you can go in 14 mi in the East and about 30 in the West. The East side was gorgeous! The color of the water is unbeatable. We camped out at the Rising Sun campground on Saturday night. I made some chicken noodle soup that Paul gave us for dinner. We went to a Ranger program focused on wolves and how society views them. Very interesting!

Let's see... on Sunday morning I got up and went to a church service in the campground. It was a non-denominational Christian service led by three college guys that are working there for the summer. I was impressed. Next, we went to Sun Point. It's this incredible spot on St. Mary Lake where the water is turquois and there are mountains everywhere. We did a 6 mile hike with a few waterfalls along the way. We saw Baring Falls, St. Mary's Falls, and Virginia Falls. The last one was incredibly surreal because the sun was shining in a way that made it hard to look straight at it and it was misty so it felt as if we were in the waterfall. Since the Going-to-the-Sun road was still out of service we drove back out into the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and around the park (a 4 hour drive) to get into West Glacier. By the time we got there we were ready for some dinner so I cooked up some cheesy spaghetti and we ate it with asiago cheese crackers. (Thanks Paul!) We camped out at Avalanche and went to another ranger led talk; nocturnal animals.

Monday morning we got up and did a morning hike to Avalanche Lake. At the base there is a trail called the Trail of the Cedars that displays old-growth Cedars and the Avalanche Gorge cuts through under a bridge. The Avalanche Lake trail is extremely mystical because it follows the narrow slot gorge on the left and the right is a forrest covered in moss and huge stones. In the afternoon we went to an intern led hike to Rocky Point on Lake McDonald. The intern was an retired woman that decided she wanted to become a park ranger. It was her first guided hike and it was focused on forest fires. We walked through an area that was hit by the "Robert Fire" of 2003. She explained the role that forest fires play in the ecosystem and why we need them. We learned a lot about lodge-pole pines and larches, two of the trees that were hit the hardest by this fire. She also taught us about methods that they use to control fire, which sometimes require fires to be purposely lit! We picked fresh huckleberries along the trail- delicious! We camped out at Avalanche again tonight.

Tuesday was our most difficult hiking day. We did a 7.6 mile trail to Trout Lake and back. It was 2.3 miles uphill followed by 1.5 downhill; vice versa for the way back to the car. We were burning by the time we got to the lake but we were pleasantly surprised by a group of campers that had a fire going and offered us all the s'mores we could eat. They even filtered some more water for us for our way back! A lot of the trail was also in a burned area but often that presents us with very unique wildflowers. On Tuesday night we decided to be true "tourons" (a nickname that locals give to all of the tourist/morons that visit the parks each year). We went to Lake McDonal lodge and bought drinks and dinner and sat on the porch in rocking chairs facing the spectacular lake. It was not a bad way to relax and I can see the appeal that the lodge has for most people. We camped at Apgar.

Fourth of July was mostly a traveling day for us. We got up and hiked into Apgar village for a few postcards and souveniers. For breakfast we drove an hour to Kalispell and wandered around town in hopes of finding some good, cheap breakfast. After about an hour we came across a grocery store/restaurant that was packed full of locals. We had 5.00 omlettes and made our way out of town. For miles we drove along Flathead Lake on the Flathead Indian Reservation. It was stunning! I need to find a friend with a boat... It was a deep blue and surrounded by mountains and rolling hills. Everyone was on it for the 4th so there were sailboats, motorboats, and swimming kids galore. It looked like a lot of fun, but we kept driving. We drove through Missoula, Bozeman's rival. It was a nice town but nothing can compare to our little paradise here in Bozeman. For the 4th, Rachael and I decided to pamper ourselves. We were tired after a long trip home so we took showers (for the first time in 5 days), went out to dinner, and drove through town to see fireworks in every direction. Although the Arch makes a great background for fireworks at home in St. Louis, the mountains are pretty magnificant too!

DAY 20

We met Paul & Beth at Miller Dining Hall this morning for an early breakfast. Paul is so generous! He brought Rachael & I a cooler full of fun snacks for us to take on our trip to Glacier this weekend. (Not to mention he gave us 3 days off next week!)

We drove to Billings which is about 2 hours away. It is a big joke between all of us that I cannot stay awake in the car. I usually fall asleep before we even get out of Bozeman! I blame my parents for putting me in the car to get me to fall asleep at night as a child. (Just kidding Mom & Dad)

The FSA meeting went really well. I was a little nervous because it was with the President of the Billings branch and several other people with impressive titles. Luckily, it was "jeans day" so anyone in the company could pay $5 to wear jeans, so everyone was laid back and very welcoming. They raise a lot of money for charity by doing this once a month. The annual meeting is basically the one time of year that we all sit down and talk about changes to be made, special delivery dates, and anything that may need to be addressed before the new school year is underway. Communication is so important in a situation like this because there are no reminders in the mail. Once we give them a hand out or set a date for something, we expect that they will follow through with what needs to be done. I presented some information about the new salad dressing, beef cube steaks, whole wheat pizza crusts, pork tenderloin, peppermints, and the annual special order list. The meeting only lasted 1 1/2 or so, even though it took the entire day yesterday (and all the work we've been doing the past 4 weeks) to prepare for it. This was sort of a cumulative project for me and Rachael. By this point we have a pretty decent understanding of the business end of food service.

After the meeting, April took us on a tour of the warehouse. They stock about 7,000 items. They had whole warehouse rooms that were refrigerated! Each produce room had a different temp depending on what the particular vegetable likes best. They also had several banana gassing rooms to turn the bananas from green to yellow before sale. The organization that must go into organizing and retreiving things in a warehouse of this size is unbelievable. They have some new rules due to terrorist threat. Because they sell to the military, the food supply has to be secure. They added a barbed wire fence around the building and guests have to check in and out and wear a special tag.

DAY 19

We spent the entire day preparing for the annual Food Services of America (FSA) meeting that will be held tomorrow in Billings. They are our prime vendor at MSU. We made endless amounts of spreadsheets and pulled together the loose ends of our projects that we've been working on. Paul is letting us present a lot of the information tomorrow.

After work we did some Rocky Mountain Concession work. We finished the pricing of menu items, designed the menus, and went to Kinkos to have color copies printed and laminated.

Tonight was another BBQ at Hyalite with some friends. It gets prettier every time.

DAY 18

We came in early to break the good news to KRAFT. Their salad dressing won us over big time. We made a spreadsheet of the reasons why we chose the company that we did (flavor preference results from taste test, off-invoice billbacks, educational allowances, freebies, etc) and then we made a list of people that we needed to break the news to. Paul negotiated the billback even further before deciding and we let Kraft know before the others. MSU's Sanitarian (Toots) needs to know specific lab values to assure that their product is shelf stable. The pH must be less than 4.6 and it must have a water activity of less than .85. I have been playing the middle man between Kraft and Toots today to get all of the information necessary.

Today we also did a sausage yield test. We are thinking about switching the breakfast sausage and Italian sausage to a Montana Made brand, Redneck. Our thought was that it may have a higher yeild of protein to fat than the brands that we are currently using. We weighed out huge chunks of sausage (5-6 lbs) and then sliced them, grilled them, and heated them up to temp in the oven. We did that with 4 types and then moved them from their greasy pans onto clean pans for re-weighing. A lot of sausage is 60/40 (60% protein: 40% fat) and we were hoping that Redneck was 80/20 which may have made it a better deal, even though it is seemingly more expensive. However, the sausages that we are currently using produced a better yeild of protein.

The rest of the day we are getting things ready for the FSA meeting on Friday.

Tonight I hiked up Lower Mt. Ellis. Beautiful!

DAY 17

Paul, Beth, Rachael, and I ate at Wheat Montana this morning for breakfast. I had a 7 grain warm cereal and it was delicious! They are a local deli/bakery that is "Made in Montana". Then we drove out to the Tobacco Root Mountains to take a tour of a potato farm/manufacturing plant. It is called Bausch Potatoes. Mark, the 3rd generation owner, not only farms the potatoes and is the head mechanic, but also runs the storage and manufacturing of the potatoes once they're harvested. Vertical integration was neat to see first-hand. I never knew that to grow a potato you just have to plant a slice of potato with a spud on it ("seed potato"). The ones from the grocery store are treated so that they don't sprout, but an organic potato would probably do the trick. They produce french fries and hashbrowns, which we use at MSU. I got to see them make hashbrowns... it was really my potato heaven there.





The rest of the afternoon Rachael and I planned and set-up a salad dressing cutting between the 60 gallons of dressing that we have in the walk-in cooler. We are getting everyone's input on their preference of taste profiles. Everyone gave us some pretty good feedback so hopefully we can make a decision later tonight.

DAY 16

We started off with a meeting at a cook-chill with Bob Burrows. His cook-chill operation serves all of the surrounding Bozeman schools. For extra income to benefit the school lunch program, they offer this service to local businesses such as MSU, Moo Casa, MacKenzie River Pizza, and the Soup Shack. Essentially, a cook-chill makes large quantities of food (serves 2,300-2,500 people every day) and chills them quickly to assure food safety. They mostly make sauces, taco meats, and salad dressings and store them in plastic air tight bags in crates. It was a really interesting tour because it's just such a massive operation. I thought cooking for 50 people in my quantity foods class was a lot! I enjoyed talking to him about the local school districts because of my interest in childhood obesity. They are attempting to be the first district in the nation that are taking the USDA "Healthier US Challenge" which has specifications for the food that can be served in the cafeteria. The parents are demanding nutrition at any cost. I would love to do menu development for schools that are in that mindset.

Then, we had three salad dressing samplings. First, Unilever Best Foods came to represent Hellman's and Wishbone, then it was Kraft, and then Lighthouse. They all had completely different sales styles. Sometimes it's hard not judge a product based on the salesperson. Also, some of them were very generous in what they offered as perks and off-invoice billbacks. I don't want to say too much specifically because we still haven't made our final decision!

After work we did some catering at the freshman orientation picnic. We served lemonade to about 500 people and then had a picnic dinner ourselves. It was a beautiful day so it was nice to get out of the office.

Every Monday Rachael and I have an "M Monday", which means that we hike up to the M at the edge of town up on the mountainside. It was put there by students in 1915 and can be seen from anywhere in Bozeman.

WEEKEND 3

What a great weekend!

Me, Rachael, Keith, and Danielle loaded into Rachael's CR-V (I want one.). Drew was somewhere behind us on his motorcycle and we knew that a group of our friends were climbing somewhere in Paradise Valley. Going off of a hand written map, we miraculously found them out at Mill Creek. I didn't think to bring my gear but Tasha was nice enough to let me climb with hers. It was so much fun! I haven't been on real rock in quite a while.

Then, we went to Chico Hot Springs. It's a cute little resort/day spa that offers a pretty cheap rate to swim in their 100 degree pool. Their small "hot, hot" pool is 105! They have a saloon right inside and there was a band playing. It was very relaxing and lots of fun. We drove back out to Mill Creek to camp.

In the morning, we at brunch at a cute little place called Pine Creek Cafe. On the outside it appears to be a regular greasy spoon, but on the inside it is an adorable and artsy place to sit down and stay a while. By this time we had met up with yet another group of friends that were spending the weekend in Paradise Valley as well.

After breakfast we went out to Dailey Lake. In Montana, if you get out the "gazetteer" you can point to anywhere on the topo and find an amazing spot to spend the day; this was one of those places. We went swimming and then laid out on the dock.

From there, we went to the Petrified Forest. There are remains of petrified trees that were covered in ash by the last volcanic eruption in Yellowstone (640,000 years ago). It was an interpretive trail so we learned a lot about the geology. We went off the trail up a talus slope to get on top of the ridge line for a spectacular view.

We topped our day off at the Boiling River in Yellowstone. I never knew that a place like that could even exist; it's a nearly boiling river (one of the crazy geological features of the park) that flows into a cold river. They have a spot blocked off that feels like a natural hot tub. Everyone sits in the river with the hot water flowing down off of the rocks and you can feel both the hot and cold currents surrounding you. It's a really neat feeling... we soaked for about 2 hours.

DAY 15

We think that Paul must have drank some spoiled milk or something... he's being awfully easy on us today! First, he let us sleep in (by our definition!) and come in at 8:45 am instead of 7 or 7:30. It was amazing. Then, he's told us to go home after our Montana Made meeting this afternoon to start the weekend early!

Montana Made is a concept in which a product must be grown and manufactured within the state of Montana. It never crosses the state line. Why local? It is supposed to increase the long term sustainability of the state and increase the economy of Montana. In addition, it may help provide fresher food. MSU currently uses 10% of its total food budget on Montana Made products. Mecca, a volunteer at the university, is pushing for more Montana Made products and is currently designing a program to make ordering these products more simple. She had a cutting today of about 20 products to possibly introduced in the fall. I sampled 4 types of hamburger today, which is more hamburger than I have eaten since the days that my dad could trick me into thinking it was ground t-bone. Ha-ha. She also had several types of steak, fish, soups, lentil salads, and granola. Most of it was pretty delicious.

Tonight, I went to Shakespeare in the Parks with Rachael. Every year, a group travels around Montana and does free shows! We saw The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was a lot of fun and absolutely packed.

DAY 14

Luckily for us, today is the longest day of the year (Summer Solstice). Before the day was through, Paul, Rachael, and I had driven 450 miles through Montana and Wyoming!

First, we visited Western Marketing in Billings, the biggest food broker in the state. Today was the annual cutting of new products that may have a place at MSU. We sampled products that no one else in the state of Montana had even seen yet. Overall, we tasted 25 new products!!! As Paul said, "This is tasting, not eating." It was hard to only take one bite and then through the rest away. Ronda had a packet of POS (point of sales) information for us and we followed along as we sampled things like oven roasted turkey breast, trans fat-free french fries and pinwheel wedges, pasta salad, cheese sticks, egg rolls, wontons, salmon filets, 9 new Tyson products, and bacon. The owner of the company came down to meet & greet us. His name is Leon and he was very personable. We had a long discussion about the new trans fat-free trend and how it is affecting the market. They are currently selling many items (even margarine) that are trans fat-free but he believes that it will not become popular unless Montana moves to trans fat-free legislation. There is not much of a demand otherwise. It was really empowering to feel comfortable giving nutritional information to someone so high up in the "food chain". Western Marketing was truly hospitable and my experience was wonderful! I love food! Afterwards, April took us & Ronda out to lunch in downtown Billings at Sweet Ginger. It was a cute Asian restaurant... I was already so full though!

From Billings, we made our way to Red Lodge. Red Lodge is a small community with lots of little shops, bakeries, etc. I stopped and had a chocolate chip cookie. We wandered around and then went to Paul's condo. He has remodeled the entire condo and did all of the impressive woodworking himself. Outside, there were piles of what appeared to be snow. In reality, it was piles of cottonwood fluff that had fallen off the trees.











Then, we headed towards the Beartooth Pass. This mountain pass reaches almost 11,000 ft! It closes during the winter due to large volumes of snow. It was a series of switchbacks that led us up out of the valley and into the snow.


From the Beartooth Pass, we passed through Top of the World, Wyoming, Cook City, and other small towns leading to Yellowstone. As if our day wasn't amazing enough already, we saw 5 bears in Yellowstone!!! There is kind of an ongoing joke about how I saw 5 bears there when I went in May (1 grizz w/n the first 5 minutes and the other w/n the first hour) and Paul didn't see his first bear until working there for 4 summers! Sure enough, we're driving along and there are some cars stopped in the middle of the road (not highly uncommon in Yellowstone) and there is a bear about 30 ft from our car, walking our way! He continued walking parallel to our car and came within about 15 ft from the car. After that we were really pumped about seeing him and we didn't think that things could get any better. We drove about 20 minutes down the road and there's another black bear! We got out of the car and watched him with binoculars and took more pictures. This one was a little further away, luckily. At this point we were on Cloud 9. Things definately couldn't get better than this... until we saw a grizzly and her two cubs playing in a meadow!!! I have never seen anything so cute in my whole life! The cubs were wrestling and rolling around and the mom was eating and scratching in the dirt a little. The binoculars made it easy to see their expressions and to watch them "up close". It was absolutely amazing! We watched them for about 20 minutes or so until they started to retreat. Yellowstone is just a stunning place. We went to the Grand View of the Lower Falls which was a viewpoint that I didn't visit when I was there in May. Paul also took us around Canyon Village which is where he worked for several summers. He managed the food service operation. It was neat to hear his stories and to take a tour from someone who really knows the place.

We headed home right around dark, which is a little after 10 pm around here. I slept the whole way back to Bozeman!

DAY 13

We worked on odd jobs around the office all morning. We tied up some loose ends on our projects.

For lunch, we met Deb up at The Habit which is this cute little restaurant on campus. It's a sit-down place but they had a buffet today for a conference that came in. It was BBQ beef with caesar salad and strawberry shortcake for dessert! Yum! Deb went to a conference recently so she told us all about everything she had learned there.

This afternoon we took a field trip to Costco. Costco is just like Sam's Club; it even smells the same. We had a spreadsheet of prices for Rocky Mountain Concessions and we compared the prices from last year to current prices. Unfortunately, a lot of the prices have gone up. Paul showed us how to compile a spread sheet of inventory and use the functions to create a second sheet to figure out pricing for each menu item.

DAY 12

If you didn't know, today is my birthday! I am 22. Rachael gave me a nice present this morning and they had cake and more presents for me at work! How sweet!

Work was very interesting today. When I got here I called the whole wheat pizza crust rep, Randy. It was my first time negotiating billbacks! Basically, I called him and told him what we were interested in (not overly interested, of course) and how much we would be using. Then we discussed pricing and I told him about the amazing deal that we are currently receiving for regular pizza dough. He has to get back to me with more numbers after running it past others in his company. A billback is when they give you a certain $ amount back for every box that you buy. We'd like to get "off invoice allowances" which don't require you to send in a rebate to get the money. For instance, we get $7.35 off for every box of pizza crust that we buy. Most billbacks are more like $1-2. Also, they are not "slotted" at FSA so we can dangle that in front of them a little bit. If you aren't slotted at a distribution center, then no one can buy your product! Since we are a prime vendor, we can get anything slotted that we want to buy. That saves the company a lot of money.

Today we started the salad dressing cutting. Ronda and April from Western Marketing came in to represent FSA brand and Ventura brand salad dressings. Rachael, Beth, and I took an early lunch and when we got back we found out that the reps came early and took Paul out!!! O well! They had a nice set-up (see picture) of several different dressings and carrot sticks for sampling. We had all of the food service managers come and test them out. After they left we sat down with the reps and discussed pricing. They are not willing to do much for us and seem to be an expensive alternative to our current dressings. If we don't find a deal we may have to stick with what we've been doing (dressing mixes). We have 3 more cuttings next Monday and a competetive taste test next Tuesday.

DAY 11

Today we got into the meat of our projects. Here's a quick summary:

1. Ordering whole wheat pizza crust for next semester

• Checking Service Link and ESysco for products; gathering info
• Figuring our current cost of pizza dough
• Calling the broker

2. Finding a better quality beef cube steak for next semester

• Call April from FSA to request samples of products
• Checking Service Link (FSA) for similar products

3. Reordering mints with the new MSU logo on the wrapper

• Obtain logo and add "MSU Bozeman" to it
• Email the mint people
• Order 5 cases of hard peppermint balls from FSA
• Get the PMS color codes from the athletic department to assure color matching
• Send the catering address to the mint people to put on the back of the wrapper

4. Annual special order (s/o) to Food Service of America

• Obtain s/o list from past years
• Look up amounts in stock on Computrition
• Assemble amounts in a spreadsheet
• Find code #'s for products that are missing #'s

This may give you an idea of why I had a 13 hour day of work today! These projects are no where near complete, and I know they sound small but a lot goes into them. We left work a wee-bit early and went off campus to meet Rick at a restaurant to discuss Rocky Mountain Concessions. We planned the menu for the Gun Show and the Summer Fair. We decided on products, mapped out the overall production plan, and chose prices based on the current price of our inventory through eSysco. This took about 4.5 hours, followed by pizza!

WEEKEND 2

It just keeps getting better & better!!!

On Saturday, Rachael and I got up and went back out to Hyalite Reservoir (where we had the picnic on Wed.) and did a little hike. We hiked about 7 miles and saw 5 amazing waterfalls. It was a good hike! It was just what I needed for a dose of peace and serenity.

Saturday night, I went camping with some of my new friends that I met through one of the catering girls. My friend owns a small house out in the Tobacco Root Mountains (gorgeous!) so we hung out there and camped in the yard. We got up on Sunday morning and continued the drive down the dirt road to basically the middle of no where for a nice hike. There was a lake at the base of the trail and then we hiked 3 miles worth of switchbacks to hang out by a pristine mountain lake surrounded by 10,000+ ft mountains. It was absolutely breath taking. Well worth the hike.

DAY 10

Today was our last day of Computrition training. We spent the morning doing a dry run of what it will be like in the fall. After lunch in the cafeteria, Gordon flew out. We will miss his good humor.

Paul let us off EARLY today to go rock climbing! We spent the afternoon with him and his sister-in-law at the climbing gym, Spire. It is a massive building with tall climbs and a whole room of bouldering, in addition to a bouldering cave. I was in my glory. Rachael and Lisa both did awesome for their first times! Paul came along just to belay; it is obvious how much he cares about his interns!

DAY 9

Today was another full day of Computrition training. Everyone is catching on quickly and hopefully they're retaining the information so that it is easy to implement in the fall. If you're curious about Computrition, these are the main topics that we have covered:

Forecasting
Production Reports
Menu Scaled Recipes
Pull Sheets
Copying Menus
Creating Inventory Worksheets
Post Meal Counts
Menu Reports- Cost of Over Production
Deleting Menus
Creating Orders
Creating Standing Order Templates
Processing Orders

Sounds pretty boring unless you know food service.

For dinner, Gordon took me & Rachael, Paul & his wife Erika, and Beth out to dinner at a sushi restaurant called Looie's Down Under. It is an upscale restaurant in the basement of a building on Main St. There were few items under $30 on the menu! I usually try to order something inexpensive if someone else is paying, but I really had no choice. I had a salad, edamame, a few different kinds of sushi (including eel), and as my main course I had a filet served over a bed of fresh picked morrel mushrooms, and asparagus with a savory juice. It was even garnished with a purple flower! The presentation of the food was beautiful. I was too shy to order wine or dessert, but his bill was still $250!!! To me, that is outrageous, but I have to admit that it was a lot of fun! Next time, I'm getting some wine.

DAY 8

Today was basically just Computrition Training. Computrition is such a complex program but once it is set up it is fairly user-friendly. I will hopefully feel competent in the entire program by the end of the week. We spent a fair amount of time fixing problems with information that has been entered into the system already. They love having interns do stuff like that!

This evening Paul and his family had a picnic at the Hyalite Reservoir for us and a few of the other food service folks, plus Gordon. It was absolutely gorgeous!!! I am in love with Montana! They made a great meal and Jeff (manager of Fat Cat Bakery) baked a cake that was decorated with Computrition jokes on it. It was a pretty funny and it was definately Gordon's first Computrition cake! Paul's family is super nice; his daughter is hilarious.

DAY 7

This morning I entered a bunch of new information into Computrition. We're trying to finish everything up before Gordon gets here to train everyone. It's pretty monotonous work but it is vital to the system working correctly.

Both me & Rachael have 3 projects of our own plus 2 projects shared that we are in charge of for the summer. We have created Excel spreadsheets that express the goals and "to do" lists for the separate projects. I have fallen in love with Excel! Paul critiqued our ideas and gave us a better idea of our time lines.

Gordon came into town around lunch time so we sat around and talked for quite a while. He travels around the country to implement the Computrition software into universities and hospitals. The woman that created the company is a Registered Dietitian. Gordon has lots of interesting stories and is very entertaining!

In the afternoon we discussed more about Computrition and Gordon showed us how to do some things that only need to be done in the master program.

Around 5pm Paul's boss needed us to work on a "project" of contacting 17 people for a NACUFS Golf Tournament that didn't have hotels listed on the registration spreadsheet. They have a shuttle system and therefore those people would not be picked up if they can't be located. So, I sent out a bunch of emails and wrote down some phone numbers for tomorrow. I'm getting much better at sending professional emails and phone calls.

Tonight, I went to a local market that had plants, pottery, jewelry, food, and a bluegrass band. Very fun!

DAY 6

This morning we discussed some information regarding Rocky Mountain Concessions, which is the business that Paul, Rick, and Ron (other food service employees) run together. We reviewed budgeting and purchasing. Then we discussed the management portion of our binders. It was interesting to think about the differences in being a leader and a manager. I definately have a lot to learn and a lot to practice. It is a life long art.

We are still trying to get Computrition up and running before Gordon gets here tomorrow.
In the afternoon, we toured the Gallatin County Fairgrounds. They have recently remodeled and it is a beautiful facility! I will be spending a lot of time there later on this summer. We met with Sue to discuss more Rocky Mountain Concessions. She also pulled out the blue prints for a new kitchen facility. We were able to judge whether or not it would be an effective, and efficient, kitchen layout. Especially after hearing the chef's point of view, I think they may need to reconsider their new plan!

WEEKEND 1

I've been keeping my personal life off of the blog. However, if you're thinking about doing a NACUFS internship, it is important to know that there is a lot of fun involved. So far this week I've been hiking 3 nights and I went rafting all day today on the Madison River. It was really windy and therefore pretty cold, but still a lot of fun.

Saturday night, Rachael and I volunteered to help in the catering department. First, we did odd jobs in the kitchen, preparing the food with Martin. We capped the meat, took temps, and cleaned stuff up. Then, we went to the event and helped with the plating assembly line. The meal served was for 360 people! Afterwards, we were rewarded with a dinner of prime rib, mashed potatoes, vegetables, strawberry rhubarb pie and an entire budnt cake! YUM!

DAY 5

Today I am exhausted... we've been working from about 7am-5pm every day and it is starting to wear on me.
Paul introduced us to Computrition today. Their entire food service will be switching over to this new program before the Fall semester. Basically, it is a software that helps you inventory, choose recipes, purchase, and figure nutrition analysis for every item used in every location on campus. It's pretty incredible actually.
Being a NACUFS intern has some fringe benefits. Not only is it a paid summer job, we also get a free room on campus, and free food. Today they let us load up a whole crate of food for our weekend meals because their are no dining services open on the weekends during the summer.
We met Greg, who owns a large sales brokrage company in Montana. He represents companies such as Hormel, Campels, Land of Lakes, and various ConAgra brands. Currently MSU is switching to his brand of syrups for the Standing Room Only Coffee Shops on campus. He was very helpful in filling in the pieces of info that Paul went over earlier in the week. Although his job sounds interesting, and profitable, I am not cut out for sales. It's all about numbers and meeting quota. He took us out for lunch at a new local restaurant called College St. It too was delicious!

DAY 4

Today was a really fun day at work. We tied up loose ends this morning and then went to tour the Fat Cat Bakery, which is Montana State's on campus bakery. They bake nearly everything from scratch here! They go as far to make their own pie crusts and homemade filling!!! I got to eat a sample of the cherry pie during our tour. The equipment they have is unbelievable (Dr. Syler would love it!).

Then, Marti from Johnsonville Brats came into town to meet the new interns (that's me & Rachael!). We sat around and talked for 1.5 hours. She explained a lot about her job and also her product. Then she took us out to an amazing Cajun restaurant in Bozeman called Zydeco's. They use her sausage for their gumbo and other menu items, so it was very appropriate. Afterwards we went to a french chocolate shop next door. Paul bought me a peice and it was delicious too.
After lunch we went to another meeting, this time with all of the managers involved with food service around campus. We met Paul's boss, Lew, and a volunteer named Mecca was in charge of the meeting. She is working on a project called "Montana Made". Basically, MSU already uses about 10% of all food that never leaves Montana. This is an effort to keep business local and to reduce the environmental impact of shipping items across the country. It was obvious that their were two sides/opinions about this project. Next week we will be sampling some of the items that Mecca is trying to get in place for next semester.

Our email is finally set up. My MSU email is fsintern1@montana.edu.

DAY 3

We met out co-workers at the SUB for breakfast. It's pouring down rain and very cold. Supposedly it's snowing at 6,000 ft (we're right below 5,000). Today we had a 9 hour discussion about purchasing. I know, it sounds a little excessive, but it was really like having a personal teacher with over 30 years of experience in the food service world, also known as the "food chain". He knows an incredible amount about the relationships between the manufacturer, the broker (sales rep), the distributor, and the end user. He's also very knowledgeable about the flow of money between the four "players" in the "game". Because of this, he does not get manipulated by them, as most people do. Instead, he turns the tables and uses this information to his best interest. The whole day was spent explaining a 1 pg diagram that he has designed that illustrates these connections. Today was very valuable because I have a much better idea of what's going on in this business world in which I live. One thing's for sure, I never want to be in sales!

DAY 2

My second day of work went really well. I think we're starting to grow on Paul a little bit. This morning Beth taught us how to use Excel 2007. It was much more user-friendly than I had remembered it. Then we spent about 2.5 hours composing an email to the 4 major salad dressing manufacturers in the country (Kraft, Unilever Best Foods, Lighthouse, and Ventura). We invited all of their regional brokers to present their products to us in a few weeks. We had very specific demands for their presentations, such as bringing 1 gal of each flavor that they produce. Our decision will be based primarily on the flavor profile of Ranch because they use over 3,000 gal of Ranch every year, far more than the other flavors!

After lunch, we did more tours. This time, we went to the Arena and the Field House, mostly to look at concession stands. We went on top of the roof of the Field House (football stadium surrounded by mountains) and the view was incredible! The whole campus, actually the whole town, is engulfed by huge mountains. I love it here! There was a storm rolling in but it looked pretty off in the distance. To be nice, Paul took us to the climbing gym, Spire, because he knows how much I love climbing. I didn't get to climb, but I priced it and signed up to work birthday parties in exchange for free climbing.

DAY 1

Today was my first day of work as a National Association of College and University Food Service (NACUFS, for short!) Intern. It is a managment position that they take pretty seriously around here! Rachael, from Michigan State, is the other intern and we get along great. Paul is my new boss and he seems very knowledgeable in the food service world. He also has an assistant named Beth so we've been getting to know her too.

It was basically just orientation today. We toured some of the food service facilities on campus and met a lot of the managers. I'm at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, for those of you who don't know. We also started our Ranch dressing project. Paul had told me about it over the phone, but I had no idea that it was a $40,000+ deal!!! Basically, they are switching from using a dressing mix that needs to be prepared by the salad department, to a ready-to-use (RTU) dressing from a distributor. This will improve shelf life, thus less waste. Also, the packaging will be easier to store and we're hoping to save money as well. You'll definately here more about this project. The two main distributors that they use here are FSA (Food Service of America, it's their prime vendor) and Sysco, which we have at home.