Award for the ages

It is always exciting to be part of an historic event. And that’s exactly what the IFMA Gold and Silver Plate Society awards dinner May 24 was.

When Tim Dietzler, Villanova University’s director of Dining Services, won the Gold Plate that evening, he did something no college or university foodservice director had done since 1967, when Gerald Ramsey of Southern Methodist University was so honored.

Rare indeed is the year when the IFMA Gold Plate goes to a noncommercial foodservice operator. IFMA has been handing out the Gold Plate for 56 years; there was only the Gold Plate prior to 1968, when IFMA created the Silver Plate award in seven—now nine—categories.

Since 1968, only four other “institutional” operators have been tabbed the “best of the best.” Three worked in school foodservice: Thomas Farley, Milwaukee Public Schools (1970); Betty Bender, Dayton, Ohio, Public Schools (1985) and Bob Honson, Portland, Ore., Public Schools (1994). The other is Jacques Bloch, from Montefiore Medical Center, in New York City (1982).

If you were scripting the Silver Plate awards as a movie I don’t think you could have written a better ending. Tim Dietzler is one of the most humble and self-effacing operators I’ve ever met. He is a man without an ego in an industry full of egos, quietly making his foodservice operation the best it can be.

It is almost a cliché for Silver Plate honorees to credit their staffs as the real winners of the award. Tim demonstrated that by having 18 members of his team join him at the dinner, and asking one of them to serve as his escort when he was introduced to the 500 or so banquet attendees.

So there they all were, soaking up the accolades from a room heavily peppered with noncommercial operators, as confetti rained down upon their boss and cameras flashed around the room capturing the moment.

And afterwards, there was the moving sight of Tim and Stu Orefice, dining director from Princeton University and last year’s Silver Plate winner in the college category, embracing as tears rolled down their cheeks. It truly was a Hollywood moment.

There are a slew of awards being handed out at various association conferences this summer, from NACUFS to SFM. But this is will one award people will be talking about long after the conference season has ended.