Details
Lead Operator, Dishroom and Trayline, Aultman Hospital
Canton, OH
Age: 29
Education: Working on a B.S. in business management and administration from Kent State University
Years at organization: 13
Why Selected?
Liz Boone, R.D., executive director of nutrition services, says: Nick is one of nine leads. He truly is one of the most intelligent leads we have on staff. Nick provides valuable ideas to problems and is always looking for ways to be more efficient in his department. Recently, Nick found a way to adjust the schedules in the dishroom to get better coverage of duties with less staff. Overall, Nick is a priceless asset to my department and above all to Aultman.
Get to know
Being selected and completing the Aultman Health Foundation’s Exploring Leaders 2011 program. It’s a program that consists of lean training, diversity training, personality assessment, etc. It’s for employees who have been recognized to become the next wave of leadership. I take pride in knowing that less than 2% of our 5,000 employees have done this training.
Q. What would you say you excel at over more seasoned colleagues?My ability to connect to all of our employees, regardless of their position, length of service and age without coming across as condescending or with a negative edge.
Q. What's the best career advice you've been given?Work life is a rubber ball that if dropped you can work hard to get it to bounce back. Your family life is a crystal ball and if you drop that it is much more difficult to put the pieces back together.
Q. What's been the biggest challenge you've had to overcome?Overcoming micromanaging issues. It took me a while to realize people do things differently than me and that’s OK.
Q. What would you like to accomplish in your career in the next two years?To continue learning new things I can use, anything from management techniques to positive rapport with my employees or new methods being used in nutritional service operations.
Q. What's been your funniest on-the-job disaster?We have a large cartwasher that refills by an on-off valve. I was in charge of turning this valve off when we left for the night. I got a phone call that there was a flood in the dishroom and surrounding hallways. We were mopping for several hours.
Q. What can you look back at now and laugh at?Being myself. I look back at myself years ago, especially when I got in a leadership position and I would take the most mundane and simple aspects of my job too seriously. Now I try to focus on the big picture and not let the minutiae bog me down.