PUBLISHER'S VIEWPOINT
May 2005
Missing Friends

We’ve been hanging around this town so long, some of our friends are beginning to retire. Or they do so well, they get even bigger jobs in other places. I’d like to thank three of them.

First Dave Brewer, who recently left the industry for another great opportunity. We at FER and in fact the entire industry owe Dave a big “thank you.” As chief engineer for Yum! Brands, he and the remarkable team he assembled have had responsibility for everything from packaging to equipment systems to international supply chain management. And with five brands and lots of co-branded units, that was no small task.

But he has also had a remarkable affect on the foodservice equipment and supplies business at large. As a member of NAFEM’s Customer Advisory Taskforce, and as an almost constant presence on industry panels, he has done more than just about anyone to get people thinking and talking about the needs of the ultimate customer.

We've been hanging around so long, some of our friends are retiring, or moving on.

By ultimate customer, he meant not so much guys like him, he’d explain, but the folks in the units who use equipment. He was always adamant about this.

We love him because no one was a bigger fan of MUFES, the Multiunit Foodservice Equipment Symposium. “Tell everybody I said it’s powerful and exclusive, that it creates real value for both us and the suppliers,” he told me the other day.

Now, someone else also has figured out how smart Dave is. Lantech, a big packaging machinery manufacturer, based in Louisville, Ky., has snatched him to be president.

And one who’s moved on: Bill Citti. I can’t believe it, but this friend is retiring. Loyalty is a good word for Bill, in the very best sense of the word. I believe he spent his entire career at just two companies—Hobart and Hatco. I can’t ask him because he and his wife Millie are traveling for a month in Italy.

But for the 20 years I’ve know him, he served as head of sales for Hatco. I can’t tell you the times I’ve talked things over with him in the aisle of a show somewhere in the world. Or the times he’s explained what was really going on with some customer or dealer or consultant. Not that he was a gossip. Never. But I knew I could get a straight story told with sympathy and an understanding of the goofiness of business and human nature. It’s people such as Bill that make all this worthwhile.

Third, Steve Grover, who has left his post as v.p. of health and regulatory services at the National Restaurant Association. Steve now has the longest title I know: v.p. of food safety, quality assurance and regulatory compliance at Burger King Corp. He may have gotten more money, but now he’ll have to pay to come to MUFES.

Thanks, friends, and good luck.

Cheers,

Robin Ashton
Publisher