Gilbert wins top FAME Award

NOV. 8—Lora Gilbert, senior director of food and nutrition services for Orange County Public Schools in Florida has been named the Golden School Foodservice Director of the Year from the Foodservice Achievement Management Excellence (FAME) Awards.

Under Gilbert’s leadership, reimbursable meals have increased by 51% in seven years. The team also achieved its goal of 40% of revenue spent on labor and food, as well as generating additional revenue by providing nutrition services to summer and recreational programs. In addition, Gilbert developed a Cooperative Cart Program where student organizations can check out mobile food carts from the foodservice program to sell healthy foods for fundraising opportunities.

Gilbert won the FAME Silver Rising Star Award in 2006. Gilbert’s background includes stints with Disney, Universal and large hospitals.

Other FAME winners include: Cindy Hobbs, executive director of child nutrition services for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, was awarded the Silver Leadership Award; Susan Ehrhart, foodservice coordinator for the Polk County Public Schools in Bartow, Fla., was named the Silver Spirit Award winner; Margan Holloway, director of student nutrition services at Tamalpais Union High School District in Larkspur, Calif., was given the Silver Rising Star Award; and Ron Strasburg, senior account executive with Upper Lakes Foods, Inc. in Cloquet, Minn., was given the Silver Friend of Child Nutrition Award.

The winners will be honored at the School Nutrition Association’s Child Nutrition Industry Conference in Seattle on Jan. 16, 2011. The FAME awards are sponsored by Basic American Foods, Schwan’s Food Services and Tyson Foods.