Acquiring Skill Sets

Margaret Burrell, director of the school nutrition program at 7,000-student Anderson County Schools in Clinton, Tenn., started in child nutrition in 1977. After one year Burrell was forced into the private sector due to a lack of funding. After stints with restaurants and working as an accountant, Burrell has returned to the school district she started in 30 years ago.

“I got a job in Anderson County, which is just north of Knoxville, for food and nutrition education for school foodservice. It was through the CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) program. I came on board in 1977 and did nutrition education for the cafeteria managers. Even then we were discussing nutritional values of food, not just from the student perspective but also from the staff perspective. I did that until 1978 until the funds were no longer there for that job. There was no money available in the regular program to employ me, so I went into the private sector. I worked for the Cracker Barrel Corp. and its management program. I did that for 20 years.

Then I had children. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay at home with them for five years. While I did that I went back to school for accounting courses. I re-entered the workforce in 2005 as an accountant. I became a CPA in 2006. I worked for a business incubator in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

School nutrition isn’t just about the food; it’s a money thing. I’ve always been a numbers person. In 2007, my current job became available. So 30 years later I came back to the same program.

I’d always been interested in nutrition. It was a position that required a lot of different skill sets: cost control, safety, sanitation and nutrition among others. Over the course of 30 years, I developed a lot of those skill sets. Any kind of job in foodservice requires so many different skills. Labor is so much harder to control now. It used to be that food cost more than labor, and now it’s exactly opposite. We had more employees 30 years ago. The biggest change is the fact that it’s so much more of a business than it was 30 years ago.”