Details
Healthy Selections Coordinator , Geisinger Health System
Danville, PA
Age: 26
Education: B.S. in nutrition and dietetics from West Chester University of Pennsylvania
Years at organization: 3
Why Selected?
According to Steve Cerullo, senior director of foodservices, Rebecca has made an impact on foodservice by:
- Developing an operations plan for the system to support a healthy hospital initiative for all retail foodservice operations
- Serving as liaison for the foodservice department with both the clinical nutrition team and the wellness team
- Developing and using the state-of-the-art demo kitchen to organize cooking demos for staff and visitors
Get to know
Being able to say I love what I do. There are days I get frustrated and stressed, but ultimately I do feel very fortunate to be able to hold the position I do.
Q. What's the best career advice you've been given?The worst advice/feedback I had been given was that my “bubbly” personality comes across as immaturity and that I don’t take my work seriously. When I thought about making a change to correct this “flaw,” I realized that ultimately that personality trait is just who I am. So I guess the advice I gave to myself is, if you are honestly trying, working hard and doing your best you shouldn’t ever have to change who you are.
Q. What's been the biggest challenge you've had to overcome?One challenge that I still struggle with is always saying “yes.” My optimism and my need to please are both a strength and a weakness, as I have occasionally bitten off more than I can chew. I am getting better with saying “no” to things I cannot add to my workload and learning to not say “yes” so hastily. I now evaluate the weight of the responsibility I am committing myself to in order to be most efficient and effective.
Q. What's been your most rewarding moment?A lot of what I do allows me to interact with and provide nutrition education to our customers, which allows me to not only pass on knowledge about a topic I am particularly passionate about but gives me social interaction, which feeds my extroverted nature.
Q. What would you like to accomplish in your career in the next two years?I have started to work on my own culinary training, to be able not only to have expertise in food and nutrition but to [have] the practical skill of putting some of that knowledge to use.
Q. What can you look back at now and laugh at?I entered a culinary competition with two of our chefs. Although our two chefs had years of culinary experience, I am your typical dietitian who knows enough to get by in a kitchen but am far from any sort of true culinary [expert]. I was later approached by many of the competing chefs poking fun, saying things like “your polite manners in the kitchen were a dead give-away that you are not a chef.”