Ever been accused of putting carrots in the jello? I have, and no it’s not some risqué metaphor, but that’s what I got from a customer for making an ingredient change to a pizza dough at the health foods store I worked when I swapped out a regular all purpose flour for a local one that was bolted— accused of making things “too healthy”! I have been working in food and retail for the past 20 years. Everyone loves and is passionate about food, and I love to help provide that, from your everyday commodities to specialty diets. Getting to learn all of the behind the scenes systems that bring everyone’s unique dishes to the table for mealtime is something that feeds my creative hunger! I enjoy solving problems the everyday consumers will never know happened before a product gets to POS when they pick something up off the shelf. And that is the fun of what we do right?So where does my degree work into all of this? Problem solving! My years of school while I worked helped me learn to use and apply creative problem solving to my work. So often I see others trudging along with a system that doesn’t work as efficiently as it could. They’re losing sales, time, and energy, all because, “this is how we’ve always done it.” There needs to be reason and purpose behind the work, this is my passion! Helping others to break out of the box, getting a fresh perspective!