Brent Craig, director of nutrition services at 57,000-student Douglas County School District in Castle Rock, Colo., always wanted to be a veterinarian. Some stumbling blocks along the road, however, led him to child nutrition.
“I never wanted to be anything but a veterinarian. When I was a junior undergrad I was ready to apply for a veterinarian college, but I had to take a class called physics. It didn’t work for me. I didn’t understand physics and I flunked it. It kept me out of veterinarian school. I thought I would do the next best thing, so I finished up my degree in animal science with an emphasis in nutrition. Then I went to the University of Nebraska and I worked with one of the leading nutritionists in a master’s degree.
When I finished school I worked in the consulting field. I owned a feed mill and I worked with dairy cows, dairy farmers and some feed lot owners. I was out helping dairymen and ranchers develop feeding programs. I did that for about five years. Then the agricultural world fell out. Big corporations were buying up small operations, so I decided to go back to school and get a Ph.D. I started off getting it in animal nutrition, but I quickly realized I didn’t want to do the research. It wasn’t quite up my alley. I met one of the professors who was involved in the dietetics program, and she talked to me about getting a second master’s and becoming a dietitian.
I had a bad experience during my clinical rotation. A small child came into the newborn intensive care who was close to death. It was too close to my heart and my kids. I called my professor and said I can’t do this. I had fallen in love with foodservice—I worked as a baker for the university while working on my second degree—and my professor said, ‘you really like foodservice, so maybe you’d like to go into administrative dietetics.’ Then I got into the foodservice business. A job in Sandy, Utah, came open for the director of school foodservice at Jordan School District. My wife found the ad in the newspaper. I said there was no way I would apply for that because I did not have a happy childhood experience when it came to school food. My wife convinced me to apply, and I got the job. School foodservice has been a love affair since day one that I can’t describe.”