Dan Henroid, director of nutrition and foodservice at UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco, was part of the inaugural AHF team. Henroid also has worked with committees for the University of California system that looked at diversity and sustainability.
Industry association: “My career has had a varied path. My first go-around in operations I was very involved in ASHFSA, a lot because there was a Chicago Midwest Chapter. I was the scholarship chair and did a lot of stuff with that group. I was not terribly involved during the time I was in academia. The first thing I did after I accepted the job at UCSF was to call Linda Lafferty and ask, ‘I really need to get back involved. What would you recommend?’ She said, ‘You need to be part of HFM.’ I got back involved. I went to HFM’s national conference before I spent one day back in operations at UCSF. I’ve been involved every since.
I was elected to the board of directors for HFM. I got involved in the education committee. When the merger [between HFM and ASHFSA] took place I was tapped to serve as the education committee chair for AHF. The following year I was elected to the board and have been pretty involved ever since. I was re-elected too, so I have two more years.
A lot of my work on the education committee was really just getting the programs off the ground and helping set some of the paths that the first board laid out and getting some framework for what activities we were going to do. I helped oversee some of the review of the legacy products. I really tried to get the webinar program up and running. I was the speaker at the first webinar on disaster awareness. When I rotated onto the board, I became the liaison to the education committee.
I moved over to the membership, recruitment and retention committee last year. Now we’re taking a really hard look at membership models for the association and where do we really want the needs to be in terms of overall membership and where we are in terms of challenges. I’m pretty outspoken about the fact that we don’t have a lot of Gen X in non-commercial foodservice operations. When I was at the Hormel’s In Front of the Future Summit some of the speakers presented research on that. We have a lot of boomers and millennials but not a lot of Xers in the middle. We’ve got to do more to not only recruit the millennials but also to understand their perspective. You can project out the retirements at a lot of really prominent institutions.”
On being with AHF from its inception: “It’s an interesting perspective. I had an opportunity to hear what’s going on and the direction that they are taking. At the same time my job is to be a liaison to the committee. In that role I have been able to do some things that would not have occurred probably if I did not have a board-level knowledge of what the budget and the revenue from membership fees means to the association. I think a lot of the committee members thought members fees were a more significant percentage of the revenue than it really is. I’m hopeful later this year we will have alternate proposals to how we make membership cost effective and have more members be a part of the association.”
Importance of being involved with associations: “I think it’s all about trying to make a difference now with what I do with my team on a daily basis but also in the future. I have a lot of respects for my mentors who I feel did that for me. I think it’s a wonderful way to give back to those who have given me so much. Part of it is I’ll always be an educator on same level.”
UCSF diversity committee: “It is an advisory committee reporting directly to the university chancellor. It’s made up of a cross section of people across the university, including the medical center, to give the chancellor recommendations on how we can leverage the diversity that we have, where are our opportunities to become more diverse are and to look at this concept of diversity from many different angles. As a person who is Caucasian and has worked in the industry for many years, I’ve always worked with diverse workforces and really believe that’s a valuable asset to use to be better. I think it’s the way the United States is and will increasing become, so we need to make sure we are creating opportunities where minorities or persons with disabilities have opportunities to make us better as a department and university. I have a very diverse workforce, so I feel like I have a lot of offer in terms of perspective.”
2011 Nursing Colleague Award: “I was nominated by three nurses. I didn’t even know the award existed until I received it. It’s an award the nursing staff has to recognize someone who has contributed back to the nursing profession in direct or indirect ways. One person every year receives that recognition. Nursing represent a little more than 30% of the workforce of the medical center. I believe if I help take care of nurses, they will help take better care of our patients. I also believe that they also have an influence on the patient’s perspective of the food and service.”
Medical center sustainability officer: “I am the sustainability officer for the medical center, so I coordinate and facilitate a lot of things at the overall institution level. I co-chair one of the workgroups that works on different areas, such as water conservation, greenhouse gas emissions and food.
The food and nutrition department has won the Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Award for the last two years. Two years ago we got the Partner for Change Award. Last year we got the Partner for Change Award with Distinction.”