HONOLULU -- As industry executives gather here this week for the 76th annual convention of the Western Association of Food Chains, the people running their stores back home will not be far from their minds.
Indeed, the theme of the convention is "Quest for Success -- Through People." "Whatever you do in business, your success depends on your people and how you get those people motivated to be successful," Dan Kourkoumelis, WAFC president and president and chief operating officer at Quality Food Centers, Bellevue, Wash., told SN.
According to Kourkoumelis, the convention program will reflect the theme by including speeches from several individuals who were motivated to succeed, including former Vice President Dan Quayle; Gene Kranz, flight director for Apollo 13; Peter Vidmar, gold medal gymnast in the 1984 Olympics; and Dr. J. Zink, a family therapist who made such a strong impression at last year's WAFC convention that he's been invited back.
Industry speakers will include two keynoters -- Robert Emmons, chairman of Smart & Final Co., Vernon, Calif., and Joe Weller, chairman and chief executive officer of Nestle USA, Glendale, Calif. -- plus Herman Cain, chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza, Omaha, Neb., and Tim Hammonds, president and CEO of the Food Marketing Institute, Washington.
Besides holding its annual educational convention, the Pasadena, Calif.-based WAFC's only other purpose is to provide educational programs for its members -- retailers and suppliers in 14 Western states.
It's been providing such programs for nearly 40 years, first exclusively through a pair of programs geared to middle- and top-level executives offered through the School of Business at the University of Southern California and, more recently, through courses offered at a variety of local community colleges for people seeking to make the food industry their career.
Kourkoumelis said one of the WAFC's major areas of concentration this year has been an effort to broaden the community college effort by developing a standardized curriculum that can be rolled out to any schools that want to offer it, "so a program in Portland, Ore., will offer the same curriculum as a program in San Francisco."
The curriculum, for retail and supplier employees, is due in the fall.
It's being developed by the WAFC in conjunction with the Office of Economic Development at Pasadena City College "to standardize the curriculum so we can give a complete package to a retailer or supplier in an area where a community college doesn't offer these courses," according to Jim Brown, executive director of the WAFC.
The curriculum will include a series of lectures focusing on such areas as the basics of the industry, business communications, marketing management, basic accounting, fundamentals of speech and human resources management.
The curriculum package will be sent, upon request, to the human resources executive at the company requesting it, who can then take it to the local college to set up a program for food-industry employees.
The WAFC will provide matching funds to the retailer or supplier to defray some of the costs, Brown noted.
Courses are currently available at only three junior colleges -- Cerritos Community College near Los Angeles, which has offered a curriculum for nearly 40 years; Community College of Denver, which has offered courses for 10 years; and Bellevue Community College near Seattle, which has offered courses for the past three years.
Since establishing the curriculum at Bellevue, QFC believes it has gotten a payback on its investment, Kourkoumelis told SN, "in terms of the enthusiasm of the people who have taken the program and their level of knowledge."
Part of the effort by Pasadena City College is involved with surveying other community colleges "to be sure our program has the right courses that are transferable for university entrance," he explained.
The WAFC will continue to fund two other programs for middle- and top-level management personnel: the USC Food Industry Management Program, which has been cut from a one-year program to 14 weeks "so people don't have to be away from their homes, their families and their jobs for so long," Kourkoumelis explained; and the USC Food Industry Executive Program, a one-week session for high-level managers that features an industry executive in residence with whom the students can interact.
