Day 79

Saturday, April 26, 2008

This morning we took a break from working on our final presentation to do some sport fishing. John Petersen, my teammate from Unified, was able to arrange a charter for Tracy (Albertsen's), Michelle (Dole), and myself to go with him out of Huntington Harbor. John's brother James, who works for Shimano, hooked us up with Captain Matt and the six of us had a fabulous time.

Leaving Huntington Harbor with the sunrise.

We left Oakwood at 4:45 am and were at the first fishing spot by 7 am. We fished for about five hours between Huntington Harbor and San Pedro and brought back 27 Sand Bass, Rock Fish and Sculpin ranging from 13-17 inches. James and Matt did just about everything for us from removing the fish from the hooks to cleaning and filleting them, which let us get as much fishing time as possible. I've never fished for anything except trout and this was just the most incredible experience - we had a blast!

We were back at Oakwood by 3 pm and back to work. It's hard to believe I'll be home a week from tomorrow. I can't wait, but I'll definitely miss days like these.

Picking up live anchovies at the bait barge.

Michelle taking a picture of a sea lion while we were stopped for fuel in San Pedro.

Me, Michell, John and Tracy pictured from the tower.

Michelle throwing the left over anchovies to the seagulls. They caught five of them in the air. Unfortunately the net in Michelle's left hand went over board and she had to catch the rest of the anchovies out of the live well with her hands.

Our catch. Not bad!

Captain Matt fillets the catch with Michelle at the helm (it was on autopilot).

The crew! John, Michelle and Tracy.

The end of a great day on the water.

Day 52 - 54

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Yesterday after the interviews we went to the First Timer's WAFC reception. There we met up with about a dozen of our classmates and then had an opportunity to introduce them to Dale and Jeff who were also there (obviously not first timers). It was nice to see them and have a chance to chat and catch up on what's happening back in the northwest. We also met John Runyan, former President of Associated Grocers, now with Unified, which was a great opportunity for Sue because her group is doing their Mergers & Acquisition project on Unified's purchase of AG. The reception lasted for about an hour and we then headed off to another patio for another reception before heading off to dinner with our Haggen group.


Don and Kathy Haggen hosted a very nice dinner for all of the Haggen delegates at Wally's Desert Turtle. We had a terrific time and it was great to see a bunch of folks from back home, not to mention some fantastic food. One of the things that was really nice about the evening was that I had the opportunity to interact with our senior executives outside the office. We all spend so much time together working that it's nice to get to know each other on a more personal level.


This morning we headed over to the convention early for breakfast, then back to the hotel where I met with my FIMSIM team (in swim trunks on the lazy river!) to discuss strategy, then with half of my Mergers team to discuss preliminary research and presentation ideas. After that we headed back to the convention for the evening hospitality events.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Today we were at the convention center early again for breakfast followed by the official opening of the convention. We were all in our suits today so we'd look sharp as we were presented to the convention. The attire the rest of the time has been business casual, but it actually runs more toward just casual for those who have been here before or are combining business and vacation (which seems to be a lot of people). One of the nice things about WAFC is that it's very family friendly and they really make an effort to make it so that business people can bring their families and have a good time while still getting some work done.


Jim Lee, this year's WAFC President and President of Stater Brothers Markets, and John Eagen, WAFC Vice President and Sr. Vice President of Costco, opened the convention with a welcome address and the Marine Corp marching band presented the colors. This was awesome. They're incredible musicians and did a tremendous job bringing energy and patriotism to the event. Before they marched out they played a medley of all of the service anthems and asked those in the audience who had served to stand as their anthem was played. I was very happy to see my classmates Tracy Hayes (Army Ranger) and Rebecca Cupp (Airforce) standing proud. I was also surprised to see how many in the audience had served, predominantly representing the Navy and Airforce, but also a fair number from the Army and Marines. After that there were a few more introductory remarks and service award presentations and then Jim presented our class to the WAFC. This really felt a little weird. We're in a convention hall with maybe a thousand people and they're all smiling and clapping enthusiastically. It felt, not for the first time during the program, like we were celebrities which, when you consider that many of the people at the convention are senior people from our own companies, is doubly weird, but also really neat. One thing about the FIM program that has struck me a number of times is that we're constantly hearing that we're the future of the grocery industry and the current leaders really treat us that way. One of our challenges is not to let our heads get too big and to remember that the biggest part of leading is serving others.


Following the opening of the convention Jeff Noddle, Chairman and CEO of Supervalu (now one of the largest grocery companies on the planet), spoke about about investing in the future through education and the importance and difficulty of finding tomorrow's leaders at all organizational levels. One of our assignments from Donna Miles, our communication professor, was to critique all of the speakers at the convention based on what she's taught us. Most of them have obviously had a lot of practice and did a very nice job. The one thing that I thought detracted from Jeff Noddle's presentation was that the first ten minutes of it he spent talking about how Supervalu is still working to integrate Albertson's into the organization and realize the efficiencies and synergies that they expected to provide a lot of the value of the transaction. I understand that since Jeff is the chief of such a massive company anything he says in any venue is going to be mentioned somewhere in the press and that since Supervalu hasn't been able to turn Albertson's around as quickly as they had promised he has to constantly reassure investors and Wall Street analysts, but it seemed to me that about two minutes in people at the convention were bored with this and didn't feel like they were getting what they came to hear. Other than that I think he did a fine job.

Next up was former Navy Captain D. Michael Abrashoff who turned out to be the best speaker of the convention. He was the commander of USS Benfold, an Aegis Destroyer (Arliegh Burke class) when it went from the lowest rated ship in the Pacific Fleet to the "best damn ship in the Navy." His presentation was on management techniques, but was really his story of commanding the Benfold and how he was able to turn the ship around, so to speak. He talked about the fact that since people are your biggest asset, the way to be successful is to engage them to take ownership of their work and to use their creativity to find better ways of doing things. As a leader, your job is to create the kind of working atmosphere where your people feel that you care about them and want them to be successful. If you can convince them that you'll back them up when they use some of the freedom you've given them they'll be more likely to implement the ideas they have for improvement and you'll all win. The essence of it was that whether you're in business, the military, or just in life People are important. Get to know them, treat them with respect, be honest with them, and just enjoy the time you get to spend with them. While he was, as he promised he would be, the least polished of all of the speakers we heard at the convention he was so genuine and cared about what he was talking about that it absolutely came through and he completely connected with his audience. It also didn't hurt that we were all still feeling the pride in our armed forces from the morning's Marine Corp marching band performance. All in all he was really terrific and I think he received a standing ovation when he fished. To top it off, when we got back to school a few days later Stacy and Michael from DPI told us that Dan Madsen, President of DPI-West (and Stacy's boss) had been at the presentation and thought it was so good that he bought each of us a copy of Abrashoff's book "It's Your Ship."

As I may have mentioned Dan was a graduate of the program about four years ago and was our first guest speaker of the semester. He's a really terrific guy who is absolutely down to earth and generous. One thing he said that I've heard from several of the younger executives who've been through the program was that he never expected to be President. He just worked hard, treated people with respect and tried to do the right things for his company. I think this is an important thing to think about: the best self-promotion you can do is to just do the best job you can.

After Captain Abrashoff 's presentation we broke for lunch which was a whole other adventure...

(to be continued)

Day 51

Saturday, March 29, 2008

We're off to the WAFC convention in Palm Desert today. Sue, Ron and I decided to all ride together since it's about two and half hours from Marina Del Rey. Every year the Western Association of Food Chains holds a convention where retailers and suppliers get together to network, attend education sessions and meet on business issues. We're looking forward to the experience and to a few hours of R&R. We still have a lot of work to do while we're there, catching up with homework and getting started on our research for the Mergers presentation only a week after we get back.

We're staying at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Palm Desert. The convention is actually a couple miles away at the Desert Springs Resort. It's a huge hotel on a 36 hole golf course, but there isn't enough room there for everyone who's attending the convention which shows how big the convention is. As soon as we arrived at the hotel and got settled in we went over to the convention to register and do some TV interviews. The WAFC is putting together some promotional commercials for the Retail Certificate Program that they run at community colleges throughout the west and they've asked to interview us about some of the things we've learned in the FIM program and our general impressions about the value of the courses available in the Retail Certificate Program.

I'm looking forward to some of the speakers, like Sam Donaldson, and Kenny Loggins will be playing at the banquet at the end of the convention. It should be a fun time.

Below, my room at the Rancho Las Palmas and a picture of the golf course off of my patio.

Day 49

Thursday, March 27, 2008

We're now through 12 "weeks" of the simulation. We all posted results and we're back on top. We were a little nervous, but it turns out we're currently showing about double the net income of our nearest competitor. Our strategy has been to run a high end chain supported by advertising and promotions. We don't have the sales numbers that some of the EDLP operators do, but we're making about twice the margin. We're also keeping tight control of labor, shrink and out-of-stocks to make sure we don't bleed out any income where we can avoid it.

For each decision we start with an analysis of our competition: what they're doing, what they've changed, what opportunities have opened up for us. We then go through detailed projections for each department and run different scenarios based on our options. Apparently it's working out pretty well for us.

Day 48

Wednesday, March 26, 2008


Today we presented our research on our Controls topic for Accounting. This was a joint project encompassing both our Accounting and Communications classes. My group, made up of Darren (Smart & Final), Miguel (Costco), Christel (Safeway), Stephanie (Associated Foods), and Bill (Bristol Farms), chose Voice Recognition in Warehousing as our topic. In order to thouroughly research it we read tens of articles from journals and trade publications, contacted people in the industry that had brought such a system into their warehouses and toured a 700,000 square foot grocery warehouse in Commerce, CA to see it in action.


One of the really exciting things about the program is the contacts you make and the ease with which information becomes available. Throughout our research for various presentations we've been able to call upon executives at several companies and they've been very helpful in getting us any informatiton we need.

Our goal for the presentation was to make a persuasive pitch for implementing the control in a real life situation. While we certainly wouldn't win any academy awards for best story, we tried to make it as interesting as possible by showing a very short live demonstration of how the system works and some video of it in action at a warehouse. We're still learning the ropes of presenting, but we've already improved quite a bit. On the other hand, our ability to critically evaluate presentations has also improved quite a bit and we felt that we didn't do as well as we could have. That said, the class rated our presentation as the best overall. In their evaluations they also gave us some things to work on in order to get even better in the future, as did professors Miles and Davila.

Day 46

Monday, March 24, 2008

Today after class we took a trip to the new Stater Brothers warehouse and corporate offices in San Bernadino. We were welcomed by Jack Brown, Stater's CEO, Jim Lee, President, and several of their top executives. They spent the whole afternoon with us talking about the history of their company, what they do and how they've grown it over the years. We were then able to tour their new 2 million square foot warehouse facility which is the largest grocery warehouse under one roof in the United States.

Jack gave us a lot of personal insights into his life, what he thinks is important and how he treats his people. The whole experience was a real treat and it's just so nice that they're willing to give us this level of access.

Days 42-45

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Wendy and Logan arrived at LAX about 9pm last night. I'm very happy Wendy was willing to fly down and visit, both so that I could see them and so they could meet my new friends and enjoy some of the California weather. Wendy's been a real trooper and flying with a 17 month old who wants to jump down and run around on the airplane wasn't easy. This was Logan's first airplane ride and while he liked it and thought the turbulence was funny, it's a long time for him to sit in one place and Wendy had her hands full keeping him occupied and using his "indoor voice."

We didn't have classes today, but instead Jim Lee, President and COO of Stater Brothers' Markets, came and spoke to us along with the folks here this week for the FIM Executive Program (including Andrew). Jim was great and talked a lot about his experience with Ralph's, Wild Oats, and now Stater. I've been very impressed with all of our speakers and the candor with which they speak. They'll answer any question you ask if they possibly can and give very personal accounts of how they made it to where they are now.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Since we had today off, I took Wendy and Logan down to the beach. Logan had never been to a beach with actual sand before and at first he didn't like it. He kept trying to brush it off of his hands and feet, but after about ten minutes of sitting on the sand he started playing with it and dumping it into and out of a bucket while Wendy buried his feet in the sand. We only stayed for about an hour so that he didn't get too much sun, but we had a great time.

Above, Logan and Daddy. Below, Logan playing with Mommy.

After the beach we stopped at Bristol Farms to pick up a few things for dinner. They're probably the closest thing to a Haggen there is down here, except perhaps Gelson's, but neither one is as big, as nice, or as friendly as a Haggen, on top of which their prices are out of sight. That said, they're still neat stores with some interesting and unusual items and Bristol's meat program is pretty terrific (including their dry aged beef).

Three of my friends - Ron (Unified), Michelle (Dole), and Dawn (Safeway) - came over for dinner and we had a great time. It was nice for Wendy to get to talk with them some more and hear from other people what the program was all about and what they thought of it. Ron also scored some big points with Wendy by bringing Logan an Easter basket with some trucks and other fun stuff to play with in it.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Today we took Logan to the L.A. zoo. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking very smart about the trip and we didn't leave until noon. The Zoo is only about 25 miles away, but it ended up taking us two and half hours to get there because of the traffic. When we got there it was in the low 90's so most of the animals weren't too excited about getting up and moving around. We still had fun and Logan really liked the Giraffes and Zebras.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Wendy and Logan flew back to Bellingham this morning and I got back to business. It was great having them here and now I feel like we're coming into the home stretch.

Day 41

My apologies for going so long without an update. After my last posting the workload seemed to increase exponentially and it's taken until now for all of us to get unburied. I'll try to catch up from where I left off, but may post some things out of order, so if you're interested go back and look for the gaps to be filled in from time to time. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Wednesday, March 19, 2008


Today we took part in an exercise called Meta-4 in the Experiential Learning Center and it was by far the best and most fun of the three we've completed during the program. The goal (though we didn't know it when we started) was for the whole class to collaborate in what I can best describe as a game in which we had to exchange scarce resources and build trust to be successful. I'd explain the specifics, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone who may have the chance to take part in it in the future. As it turned out, Dawn and I lead the group to a record breaking victory, with a lot of help and cooperation from everyone else. We were able to attain complete success in five rounds which our instructors told us they've never seen before with any of the more than 2000 groups for which they've run the exercise - from undergraduate and MBA students to professionals and executives. After this level of success with the whole class working together in one group we were all walking on clouds for the rest of the day. This probably wasn't the most important thing we'll learn or do while we're here at the USC FIM program, but I'm sure we'll all remember it as one of the high points and one of the things that's helped us become a family. Several of our professors have remarked on how our class has really come together as one group without any fragmenting or cliques and I couldn't agree more. I can't imagine a better group of people to share this experience with.

Day 38

Friday March 14, 2008

Today was our first day off in over a month. We didn't have any classes and although we have a lot of work to do this weekend, it was great to take a morning off and get outside. Some of my friends talked me into going golfing with them on the Westchester course which is just about 15 minutes away. I don't golf, but John and Jimmy gave me some pointers and by the thirteenth hole I was doing OK.

After golfing I took a quick nap and spent the rest of the day working on projects.

Below Gary Hunt from Food4Less and I are waiting for the rest of the crew.


















Did I sink this put? Tony McAndrews from Bristol Farms and John Ignacio from Safeway watch and give me pointers (or give me a hard time).

Week 8

Monday March 10 - Thursday March 13, 2008

This week was mostly about communications. We received "feedforward" from Donna Miles on our Trend Analysis presentations, we worked on written communications and then we all redid the opening of our Trends and presented it in front of the whole class. By the time we got through it everyone was a bit drained.

Right after class on Wednesday, my group for accounting/communications ran down to Commerce to visit Smart & Final's distribution center and see their voice recognition system in action. We had a fabulous tour of their 400,000 sq. ft. warehouse and got a tremendous amount of information that will help us with our next presentation.

Finally, we posted our FIMSIM results through 8 "weeks." My team is now in second place, but we're confident we can get the lead back and finish strong.

Day 33

Friday, March 7, 2008

Today was a long one. We had an extra four hours of Accounting today, with Reuben Davila, talking about the inventory cycle and managerial accounting. I rather enjoyed it, but by the end most of my classmates' eyes were a bit glazed.

After accounting those of us who had gone home over Presidents' Day weekend dashed south to Orange County to meet Tom Arnold for store tours. We started at Trader Joe's, which was nothing new to me, then on to Growers' Direct Produce. Growers' Direct was amazing, just about 6,000 sq. ft. and about 350 SKU's total. The product was the best I've seen down anywhere here and the prices were also the lowest by far - a true category killer.

Next was Mother's Natural Foods which reminded me of a small version of the food coop in Bellingham, except that they had a room to the right as you entered with over 80,000 SKU's (no I didn't add a zero) of vitamins and supplements. I'd guess there was probably well over $1 million of inventory at retail just in there.

After Mother's we went to Hi-Time Wine Cellars and I was blown away. The store was immense and they had more kinds of wine and liquor (and a pretty decent selection of beer) than I knew existed. The cellar was a labyrinth that wound its way beneath the store with thousands and thousands of individual selections ranging from $6 to over $600 per bottle. I can't imagine trying to shop there unless you really knew what you were looking for, but it was truly one of a kind and well worth seeing. These first four stores were all within five blocks of each other.

The tour ended at Bristol Farms in Newport Beach where Tony McAndrews, one of our classmates from Bristol, led us through the store. The store manager is actually Bill Veeder, the other one of our Bristol classmates, so they knew we were coming and treated us very well - grilling up some of their 21 day aged New York steaks for us to sample. Bristol Farms reminded me a lot of Haggen, but is about half the size of one of our stores and focuses a bit more exclusively on the upscale customer. They only build their stores where there's an average household income of over $100,000.

The tour ended just before 3pm and, in order to avoid the traffic back to Marina Del Rey, ten of us decided to go next door to Gulf Stream and have dinner before heading back. We had a good time and probably saved ourselves two and half hours of sitting on the freeway.

Day 32

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Kevin Davis, President and CEO of Bristol Farms, came and spoke to us in Tom's class today and he was great. One of the most important components of the FIM program is the opportunity to talk with senior executives from our industry and to ask them questions about their experiences and how they've handled different situations.

Kevin was an excellent speaker, very knowledgeable about the industry, and quick on his feet in that he can switch to talking about anything in an instant. What I found most interesting about his story was that he left a large chain (Ralph's) as a Senior VP to take over Bristol Farms, which at that time was a three store chain without any infrastructure. His description of having to put all of the pieces into place in order to grow the company to its current 16 stores was something you'd have a hard time getting anywhere else.

Now that Bristol Farms has been acquired by Supervalu, through Albertson's, it's also enlightening to hear about how a small company can maintain its identity after being purchased by one of the largest food retailers in America. The fact that Kevin can tell Jeff Noddle, CEO of Supervalu, that they need to build a lot more stores in southern California before they can even consider a store in Seattle or New York speaks to the good relationship they have.

Day 31

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

After "6 weeks" (6 decisions) with our FIMSIM stores we presented our companies along with results and projections for the future to our "Board of Directors," which in this case was Tom Arnold, the director of the FIM program. The presentation went extremely well, despite the fact that we'd had a few setbacks in the two decisions before the presentation. We're confident we can get things back on track and believe we're still in the top two teams in terms of overall performance. We'll know for sure after "week 8" when we all post our results again. All of the other teams still think we're absolutely killing them.

The Dream Team: John Petersen (Unified), Brooke Fan (Safeway), Tracy Hayes (Albertson's), and me.

One of the most exciting things about our presentation was Brooke Fan. She's very quiet in class and reserved in our meetings. John, Tracy and I are probably the only three in class that really know how smart she is. During our presentation, however, she took the stage and did a fabulous job. Tom Arnold even commented that he was very surprised at how well she presents and asked her why she doesn't speak up in class. He also noted that "these three guys always have something to say." When the shoe fits...

Week 6 Weekend

Saturday, March 1, 2008

The weekend opened at 7 am with an 8 mile walk to Santa Monica and back with seven of my classmates. On the way back we stopped at Fig Tree's cafe for a great breakfast - french toast, omeletes, and someone had lox and bagels.

Back row from left: Tom Terrel (Food4Less Store Manager of the Year), Michelle Schlefstein (Dole), Ron Mitchell (Unified), Me, Juan Hidalgo (Basha's), Stephanie Herr (Associated Foods).

Front from left: Dawn Davies and Christel Ebenson (both from Safeway).

Day 28

Friday February 29, 2008

Today was another terrific day. I talked Wendy into coming down to visit and bringing Logan for Easter weekend. She's a little nervous about flying with him for the first time (and solo to boot) and I can't blame her. I think we're really going to have a great time though and I'm excited for her to meet all of my new friends and for them to meet my family.

We made it through our Nielsen Case Study presentation today. Again, this was a fun experience and took most of us far outside our normal range of activities. My group acted as a sales team for Kraft selling Starbucks coffee to a retailer. We had to use Nielsen scan data and Spectra demographic information to convince the retailer to commit to a holiday promotional end cap and sampling event. I have a much better insight now into what our buying staff does, how they probably evaluate promotional opportunities, and what vendors and distributors go through to prepare for their meetings. My group included John Ignacio (Safeway Store Manager), Tracy Hayes (Albertson's Safety Director), Miguel Gallardo (Costco Assistant Warehouse Manager), Scott Schuette (Basha's Perishable Coordinator), and Michael Meadows (DPI Product Manager). We worked very well together and probably put in over 100 hours total on this project.

Day 26

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

In our communications class we navigated an exercise in "Dealing with Difficult People." This was the first and only time that Sue Yarkosky and I will get to work together down here (except for our Haggen presentation) and we did very well.

Eight of our classmates volunteered to play the difficult people (John Ignacio, Chris Jongko, Ron Mitchell, Christian Tesoro, Dawn Davies, Andrea Dimond, Tony McAndrews, and Michelle Schlefstein). Each had a role to play: "The Negativist," "The Super Agreeable," "The Complainer," and "The Clam" and a situation in which to play it. The rest of us broke into teams of two and for each situation we went into a room where the difficult person awaited. We had a little bit of background on the situation and a goal. For example, with "The Clam" we were a product management team that had to get their agreement to roll out a new product, but as we tried to convince them they just sat there and looked at us without saying anything. The key here was to ask pointed and open ended questions that required more than a yes or no answer.

Sue and I were reasonably successful with three of the four situations, but had difficulty dealing with Dawn in her role as "The Complainer." Having "worked" at the fictional company for over 30 years she had a laundry list of complaints and excuses. She's also quite a talker, so we had enough trouble just getting a word in edgewise, let alone attempting to modify her behavior.

This was a great exercise in which we not only learned a lot, but also had a lot of fun. The difficult people all played their roles exceptionally well.

Day 24

Monday, February 25, 2008

Today was a great day. We presented a business trend in Professor Miles' Communication class (mine was on the use of irradiation in meat safety). The goal was to choose a company and persuade their board of directors (played by our classmates) to implement our proposed solution based on the trends we had identified and analyzed within their business. During the presentation "the board" was to interrupt us with questions and generally try to make us think on our feet. I think I did fairly well, though if anything I think I overprepared the speech and should have spent more time simply absorbing the facts. I actually preferred being asked questions during the process and didn't find it distracting at all. To go along with it we had to prepare a PowerPoint that followed all of the new rules we've learned, so that it magnified our persuasive power and was directly on point, rather than being a distraction.

I really felt relieved to have this and a few other things behind us. I've been playing a bit of catch up since going home to visit and I now feel like I'm back on my game.

We also posted our results for the first four weeks of FIMSIM and my team is number 1! Hopefully it's not fleeting and we can maintain or increase our lead. My team works together extremely well and we're learning something new with each decision we make.

Day 23

Friday, February 23, 2008

Karl Schroeder, President of Safeway Northern California came to our class today and spoke to us about what he thinks are the most important ingredients for succeeding in business.

Having seen him speak the previous week at the WAFC Donor Luncheon I knew it would be a great talk. The first thing that struck me was that before class as everyone was sitting around chatting he came around and introduced himself to each person individually. He had obviously done his homework on all of us and knew our names, which company we were from, and asked about who we knew in common or told quick stories about people he knew in our companies. Those of us whom he had met at the luncheon he remembered meeting and didn't re-introduce himself. In our discussions later, the class was very impressed with this.

The best thing about Karl's speaking style is that he comes across as very humble and genuine. He talks openly about the fact that before going through the FIM program he had only attained an associates degree. He said that while he thinks this has sometimes been a disadvantage, he's worked hard not to let it hold him back.

After his talk we all went to lunch at the University Club where he answered questions all through lunch about his experiences. He gave us a lot of very personal insights not only about business, but about his own climb up the corporate ladder. This was a great end to a tough week and the kind of experience I really couldn't get anywhere else.

Day 21 - 22

This has really been a crazy week!

Wednesday, February 21, 2008

We started off with an exam in Professor Hill's class which I think I did very well on. We then ran over to the Experiential Learning Center where we "performed" our Meyers-Briggs team presentation on types. My team showed the interaction between opposite "temperaments," how these temperaments lead us in opposite directions and make us think completely differently, and how we can bridge some of these gaps simply by being aware of where the other person is coming from in terms of "type." Our presentation was funny and creative, but pretty tame in comparison to some. Since no one knew what the other teams were doing we ended up with three different groups performing versions of "The Dating Game" from back in the 70's, but it worked out since they all had some very different takes on it and taught us different things about MBTI. Another group did a "Wizard of Oz" takeoff which was clever, but I think the best idea was from the group that represented each of their personalities as a wine and performed as a group of tourists going to a wine tasting at a vineyard.

Wednesday wrapped up for me with group meetings until 9pm for the Nielsen Case Study and FIMSIM. I then worked on writing up a draft of Nielsen for one of my teams and our Accounting Controls Presentation Proposal for another team until about 12:30 am.

Thursday, February 22, 2008

We had our second accounting quiz, again in group mode. I worked with Sue Yarkosky and Rebecca Cupp (Director of Pharmacy for Ralph's) who both have a pretty good handle on what we're doing.

I then turned in our Controls Presentation Proposal to Professor Davila only to find out that another group had selected something similar and turned it in the day before. Since there was too much overlap we're back to the drawing board. That was really really frustrating given the time crunch I've been feeling this week. This is probably the first time in my life I've felt like I didn't have enough hours in the day to do my job 100% no matter how hard I work. I really think this is an intentional part of the program - to load us down with work to the point that you have to make choices and sacrifices, decide what is the most important, and focus on that. I have a hard time with this because I always want to finish everything completely - I don't like "good enough." But I'm learning.

In Professor Arnold's class Gary Hunt and Tom Terrell from Food 4 Less presented their company to us. They did a very nice job and I found it interesting since I've not seen one of their stores yet. It seems to be similar to a Winco with perhaps a bit more focus on service. They also set the bar pretty high with gift bags (similar to our green polywoven Haggen bags) filled with wine, semi-gourmet chocolate, and other snacks. I think Sue and I are going to have to place a call Merchandising! We present Haggen to the class on April 7.

The rest of Thursday was a quick meeting with my Controls group to come up with a new topic and figure out how to get it done by tomorrow. Since some of us had other meetings or had already left to commute home I picked a topic, sold the group on it and suggested we do research independently. We'd then coordinate over the phone and email this evening.

As soon as I got home I dove right into this and found I'd really lucked out on the topic choice (using voice recognition systems in a warehouse setting). There was a massive amount of information on the subject and I easily found everything I needed. I was able to complete the preliminary research and proposal in about three hours and send it out to my group. I was very happy to have this done given the looming deadline, but I think in a larger sense this was a terrible failure. If, as we've learned from Professor Hill, Management is accomplishing organizational goals through other people, then by taking all the work on myself I totally failed to manage my group. I think this is a good lesson learned and probably exactly what the program is designed to teach me.

I took a break after that to go to the Thursday night BBQ - Tritip tonight. Sitting around and talking with my classmates inside (it's been raining here all week) I noticed how exhausted everyone looked. It was low key and I was back to my apartment to try to get some sleep before 9pm.

Day 19

Monday, February 19, 2008

I flew back to Los Angeles Monday afternoon, but as our plane was getting pushed out of the gate by the "tug" the ground crew jack-knifed it and could have damaged the landing gear. We taxied back to the gate, inspections ensued, but everything turned out OK. Unfortunately we were two hours late by the time we took off so I arrived at LAX about 11pm. One of my fellow students picked me up and by 11:30 I was back "home" working on accounting homework. Since I didn't take anything with me on my trip (except for a couple books to read) I have some catching up to do this week. I was able to knock out the accounting work by 12:30 am and hit the hay. I decided to sleep in until 5:30 tomorrow!

Tuesday, February 20, 2008

Classes this morning included exam review on Management and Organizational Behavior with Professor Hill followed by accounting with Professor Davila which included a quiz. I then met with two of my groups on campus.

I drove the carpool today, so I was able to stop at Home Depot on the way home to pick up a toilet seat to be used as a prop in our team Meyers-Briggs presentation tomorrow. We're encouraged to use a lot of creativity in our presentations and do things that will get our audience's attention. I don't think that will be a problem.

After a quick dinner I've spent about five hours working on FIMSIM, our Nielsen Case Study (in which my team is taking the part of Kraft trying to convince a Retailer to give us an endcap for Starbucks Coffee at Christmas), and our Accounting Controls presentation proposal. A little more exam review and I hope to be sleeping by midnight. As I said, I'm doing a little catching up from the weekend, but it's well worth it for the time I was able to spend with my family.

Day 18

Thursday, February 14, 2008

After classes today I flew home to visit my family for the weekend. It's been exactly one month since I've seen Wendy and Logan and a lot has changed. Logan looks all grown up (at 15 and a half months) and now says a bunch of words including "backpack" and "goose egg" and makes all the farm animal noises.

I don't think he knew what to think when I got off the plane. He was a little nervous to go to me at first, but he was obviously happy I was there, with a big grin on his face. I knew I'd be a little emotional being back and really seeing all the things I've missed, even though I've been keeping a list of all the new things Logan learns to do.

I'm very happy to be able come home for the weekend and I know it's going to be hard to leave on Monday.

Day 17

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The highlight of today was the WAFC donor luncheon, an opportunity to show appreciation to the donor companies for the generous financial support that makes the Food Industry Managment program possible. The event was held at USC's Town & Gown where we had the opportunity to dine and network with about 150 other retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, nearly half of whom were graduates of either the FIM program or the FIM Executive program.

Jim Lee, President of Stater Brothers, and Karl Schroeder, President of Safeway Northern California, both spoke passionately about WAFC's education mission and encouraged the donors to continue their support into the future. Karl talked a lot about the importance of keeping the long term benefits of the program in mind and acknowledged how difficult it is in today's environment, where Wall Street is focused on short term profits, for companies to resist the pressure to do the same. This dove-tailed nicely with what Professors Arnold and Hill have been talking about this week in different contexts. Karl was an exceptional speaker and if you have the opportunity to hear him I highly recommend it. He has a very honest, conversational style that is very persuasive. He obviously believes strongly in the power of education to transform our industry, particularly with the Retail Management Certificate community college program.

During the event I also had the opportunity to talk with Dick King, President of Associated Food Stores and a really nice guy. Two past FIM students from Associated have worked for Haggen and Dick had a lot of nice things to say about our company including that he thinks it was a real benefit for those students to work with us and be able to take that knowledge back home with them. Associated works with a lot of single store family-owned independent retailers and this year is sponsoring my classmate Stephanie Herr. Stephanie works for her parents at Roy's Market in Elko, Nevada and, as I may have mentioned, is the youngest of our class at 23, but she's a real go-getter and can definately hold her own. She's in two of my working groups and makes a great contribution to the team.

My day wrapped up with three group meetings from 2-7:30 and then Nielsen research for our Case Study project until 11pm.

Day 15

Monday, February 11, 2008

As soon as we arrived we turned in our first real FIMSIM decision. We then started the morning off with Professor Arnold talking about our Nielsen case study, before moving on to analyzing labor for FIMSIM using the decision making model he presented to us on Thursday. After that we discussed trends in the industry related to increased government regulation and health & wellness, using a story from today's morningnewsbeat.com (about DeCicco Markets in New York) and finished up with an article from the Harvard Business Review titled "What is Strategy?" which we're to read and be prepared to discuss on Thursday.

After Tom's class, Professor Donna Miles presented us with more Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator information which we're all enjoying very much. It's really fun to better understand why we all do the crazy little things we do and be able to predict, to some extent, what will happen when different types interact, all based on our natural preferences.

Donna then imparted to us the correct way to put together persuasive presentations and we now know that just about every presentation we've ever done, or seen for that matter, was set up exactly opposite of how it should have been and actually hindered the ability of the speaker to persuade anyone of anything rather than helping them.

If there's one consistent theme I've discovered throughout the program so far it's this:
Nearly everything you've ever learned is wrong, but the right way is not only more effective, it's easier, more fun, and more intuitive.

Where I originally thought we'd be learning how to be more "corporate" it's precisely the opposite. Particularly with communications the message is that you don't have to be a clone. Using your own unique abilities and voice and bringing your passion to your work is what really makes you stand out and achieve great things.

I then spent the rest of the afternoon meeting with two different groups on three different projects before catching a ride back to Oakwood to work on reading and homework.

Week 3

Things really started to heat up this week!

On Monday we received our FIMSIM materials. Each team will run a grocery store for sixteen weeks with expansion taking us up to a possible total of four stores. The team with the greatest net income at the end "wins," although it's really the opportunity to learn analysis and strategy and to fail without consequences, that matters - but we still want to win!

After our classes on Monday we took a trip out to City of Industry to visit Heartland Farms, a dairy processing plant owned by Stater Brothers. They put on a nice lunch for us and Scott Gonia, the Director of Plant Operations, took us on a tour of the facility. The plant produces tens of thousands of gallons of milk products and juice each day and it's amazing as you walk around how few people it takes to operate the plant.

Chris Jongko from Kraft dons his hairnet in preparation for the tour.


Jimmy from Costco and me, also in our hairnets.


The receiving dock at Heartland Farms. Each truck brings in 5,500 gallons of milk.


Dawn, Rod, and Jimmy look on in the testing room as a technician explains how they test to ensure there aren't any antibiotics in the incoming milk and what they do if they find any.



A machine on the line boxing the cartons of juice (automation).




The white arm-like thing inside the cage is a robot that picks up the boxed product using suction and palletizes them. Everyone was enthralled by the speed and precision with which it worked.



Here another robotic station shrink wraps the finished pallets before they're sent down the conveyor line to the cooling room.



Below the pick line brings many different products together into various slots where the computer uses a series of gates and conveyors to "pick" the products for each order. Orders of less than a full case are picked by humans. Because of the automation and computer control they can track the fluid in any item all the way back through the plant to the truck that brought it in, and the farm from which it came.


The tour was great and the staff were very knowledgeable and pleased to answer our questions. It's incredibly interesting to see what goes into getting that jug of milk or bottle of juice onto the store shelf.

After class I spent about six hours analyzing the FIMSIM data and building various analytic spreadsheets as well as an operating statement by department to use not only for summarizing our performance, but to project, based on our inputs, what our stores' net income will be. This also allows us to validate our decisions before we finalize them each "week."

After that I did some reading, wrote a paper for Professor Hill about my personality or at least my own perception of it, which should be fairly accurate now that I've spent the last two weeks learning all about myself.

Tuesday we had class until noon and then I spent the afternoon working on various projects, reading, and working with my FIMSIM team to make our first "decision." It was actually a practice decision since Professor Arnold was nice enough to give us the opportunity to take a crack at it without having to live with the consequences. This was great because not only did it give us a chance to get familiar with the simulation, but we were also able to test a strategy and see what happened. I won't tell you all what our team's strategy is, in case any of my classmates are reading this, but I will tell you that we came out within $100 net income of our projection. That's not to say we nailed every component, but overall we were where we thought we'd be.

After that Dawn invited several of us over for meatloaf, mashed red potatoes with kale, and steamed green beans. Eveything was great and it's always a nice event when someone decides to make a home cooked meal!

Wednesday we made our first presentation in the Experiential Learning Center (ELC) where we presented to our small group everything they needed to know about us - specifically our strengths and personality types as defined by the instruments we've taken over the last two weeks. The "fun" part was that we were video taped and then saw the results and received "feedforward" from our groups on what we could do in the future to be even better. My group ran a little long so I didn't get to see myself right then, but my group said I did a great job and that I seemed very comfortable. Feeling well pleased with myself I took the DVD home only to see several glaring things that I need to work on when I watched it. It wasn't a bad start, but I can and will do better.

Thursday was our first accounting quiz. There was a lot of anxiety by most of the class that was only somewhat assuaged when halfway through we were allowed to work in groups and given until the end of the day to complete it. The additional requirements were that there could be no more than three in a group, we were honor bound not to use notes, and we could not talk to any other group until everyone had turned it in. I got myself into a little bit of hot water and picked up a new nickname - "Kobe."

It all started as soon as Professor Davila (a huge Laker's fan) said we could work in groups (and before he'd added the other requirements) and half the class yelled out "Kevin!" I said "Whoa, wait a minute I need to look at the questions and understand them before I can help anyone else." The rest of the class started to talk amongst themselves and the Professor added that once you'd started conversing you were bound to that group. This made it easier for me, but then Professor Davila, seeing that I was still by myself, asked if I was Kobe Bryant and I could do it all on my own - it was good natured, but I don't think he was really joking. I should have either just said yes or explained that I'm an I (Myers-Briggs "Introvert") and need to think about the question and my answers before discussing, but instead I just said no and started working with Chris Jongko who was right next to me. The funny thing was that Chris was more comfortable with the material than most of the others in the class and didn't really need me. I think we did well enough on the quiz so long as we answered the right question. The other thing about Professor Davila is that he seems to prefer to just hand out a fact sheet and then either make up the quiz question on the spot or give you a question that's totally different than the one written on the quiz (if indeed there is a question listed on the quiz), so we'll see.

I kept quiet for the next half hour and by then any tension (that was probably only in my mind in the first place) had blown over.

Friday we came in for a three hour session with Professor Arnold where the Nielsen Company came in and presented what their service does for the industry as well as a Case Study assignment for our class using their data. This was where we picked up our third working group of the week which makes scheduling a lot more difficult. My group's assignment is to represent Kraft's Starbucks coffee to a retailer (Retailer X) as their account team. We're to use the Nielsen data to craft a presentation over the next two weeks to convince the retailer to give us a commitment for an endcap display, including a sampling event, to promote Starbucks special holiday varieties in 12oz bags during the winter holiday promotional window.

What's fun about this project, aside from getting to use real data and reports from Nielsen in a realistic scenario, is that Chris Jongko has represented Kraft's Starbucks, Folgers, and Maxwell House brands (the three brands that all of the presentations relate to) to Walmart for the past two years. This project gives him the opportunity to be the "expert" in our class and although he's not on my team he has graciously offered to help everyone with the Nielsen data and how to use it in analysis.

After the case study assignment presentation we all went to the University Club with the executives from Nielsen and Professor Arnold and had a chance to sit and talk with them about their insights into the grocery industry. They were also very interested in our insights and asked a lot of good questions about our companies and business.

By the end of Friday everyone was just about dizzy. Those who could, left for home to see their families and catch up. About a dozen of us that are staying at Oakwood went to Wharro, a korean barbeque restaurant nearby, for a fun dinner that had us sitting around a table inset with charcoal grills and grilling up our own meat and vegetables. We had a great time and were still able to make it home by 8pm. I then worked on the assigned accounting homework and read some more books before turning in for the night.

Finally a note to all my loyal and supportive readers: I'm going to try going back to posting evey day or two. It's probably more interesting and a better story for you that way and I don't have to think so hard to remember what happened for the whole week. Look for a new post tomorrow!

Week 2 - FIMSIM Teams Revealed

Friday February 1, 2008

We had a special three hour class today with Tom Arnold, to make up some of the time we lost when he was sick last week, at the end of which he revealed the composition of our FIMSIM teams.

I could hardly be more pleased with the team I'm on. In addition to myself we have Tracy Hayes from Albertson's, Brooke Fan from Safeway, and John Petersen from Unified Grocers. There isn't a single person in the overall group that I wouldn't have wanted to work with, but Tracy, Brooke, John, and I will complement each others' strengths well. In my opinion, one of the best things about our team is that we all have very compatible personalities. Everyone's a team player and will lead the team according to their skills and the requirements of the situation rather than anyone trying to drag the team where they want to go. While that can sometimes be a useful skill, I believe the caliber of people represented in the FIM group will produce maximum results when everyone is allowed to make a meaningful contribution.

Wish us luck!

Week 2

Everything started to heat up this week so I haven't been able to post everyday. I think I'll try to move to one post per week for the rest of the trip. A normal day for me goes something like this:


5:00 am - Wake up, do some stretching, get ready for the day.


6:00 am - Check my four different email accounts and if I have a few extra minutes read Morning News Beat from the day before (morningnewsbeat.com).

6:40 am - Leave the house to meet Ron, Sue, and Dawn for the morning commute.

6:45 am - Leave Oakwood. We often take different routes to school (there are at least six different ones), but my usual is Washington Street east to Lincoln, Lincoln south to SR-90 East, to Slauson Blvd, Slauson south to Figeroa St, then Fig east to USC. This takes anywhere from 24 to 48 minutes depending on the day of the week, the weather, and who crashed their motorcycle into a closed on ramp after a high speed chase with police (no joke, it was on the news at 5 am on Tuesday).


7:30 am - Arrive at USC


8 am to 10 am- First class, either Accounting (Ruben Davila), Decision Making (Ed Hill), Management Communications (Donna Miles), or Marketing, Research, and Simulation (Tom Arnold)


10 am to 12 pm - Second class. One of the above - each class gets 2 or 3 two hour sessions per week.


Noon to 1 pm - Lunch with various classmates either brown bag or at one of the many many eating establishments on campus. I have lunch with different people almost everyday and it's really a pleasure to get to know them all individually.


1 pm to 3 pm - Lab class. Either electronic library research or Microsoft Office 2007 with Kim Esser and Wayne Wilmeth respectively. This is our last week of these classes which were designed to give those of us who haven't been in school for a few years (pretty much everybody) some familiarity with today's educational/research/reporting/presentation tools.


3 pm to 4 pm - Commute back to Oakwood.


4 pm to 10 pm - Various activities. Try to do something active like take a quick walk, a swim, or go to the gym. Have a quick dinner or maybe once a week someone will decide to cook something and have a few people over (this week I made a lasagna and Ron made fajitas). Then spend a couple hours reading, about an hour writing in my journal and/or blogging, and probably another hour writing a paper for myself about what I've read. Some nights I may spend an hour or more working on a presentation and as we go along and get through the books we're reading most of our "off" time will be devoted to working with one of about three to four groups preparing presentations, analyzing and making decisions for our Food Industry Management Simulation (FIMSIM), or working on individual presentations, not to mention studying for exams.


As you can see it's a lot of work! But it's also a blast and more rewarding, just in the first two weeks, than I can adequately describe here.


This was our first week of accounting so, in preparation, I led a study group on Sunday attended by about half the class. As we went through the first week of class, I think a lot of people found it even more difficult than they expected. That said, the class is full of bright people who, I believe, will do fine. In my opinion, the biggest obstacle is that as experienced business professionals we tend to want all the answers all at once and need to take a step back, slow down, and walk through the basics at the speed Professor Davila wants to teach it.

Monday afternoon Sue and I went for a walk down the beach since it was the first day it wasn't raining in the afternoon in about a week. It was none too warm when we left, but by the time we'd walked two blocks to the beach we had to take off our coats. Here are some pictures.


Below: Venice Beach as seen from the Washington Street Pier about two blocks west of my apartment.



Surfers seen from the pier.




Sue standing on the pier. Notice the sweatshirt. It's warm compared to Seattle, but it's still below 60 degrees.



Waves breaking over rocks on Venice Beach. The guy in the lower right corner is in for a close up. I wasn't that brave.


On the way back we walked through the Venice Canals again so I could get some pictures. There are a lot of unique houses as I mentioned previously. The pictures below are of some of the bigger, nicer ones, but there are quite a few that are probably 1000 sq. ft. or less. I doubt any of them would sell for less than $1 million.





Below: This one's for sale. Only $2.9 million and you even get a 2 car garage.







On Wednesday we did our first rehearsed presentation - a one to two minute introduction of one of our classmates who would be giving a fictitious speech or keynote address in a situation of our choosing. The challenge was to be engaging, using the guidelines Professor Donna Miles had given us, creative, and to act more comfortable speaking to a group (even if we really weren't inside). We were given permission for this presentation only to use MSU (Making Stuff Up) and many of the intros were absolutely hilarious. Donna said we may be one of the most creative classes she's ever had.

Thursday wrapped up the "normal" week with Dan Madsen, President of DPI, speaking to us about his company (a $900 million specialty food distributor) and also his experience going through the FIM program in 2005. He mentioned that he enjoyed working with Joel Todd from Haggen on his FIMSIM team and talked about what he believes are the most important things for being successful in business. Dan was a very nice guy and his accomplishments really got everyone's attention particularly in light of the fact that he's only about 37 years old and was promoted to President just ten months after graduating from the FIM program.

We continued the traditional Thursday night BBQ with Don & Keith from Stater Brothers and Rod from Bimbo Bakeries grilling up carne asada. Special thanks to Don's wife Heidi who actually did most of the work.

Day Four - California Club

Friday, January 25, 2008

Today was pretty quiet. I think most people spent the day around Oakwood or with their families. I went over a few assignments, caught up on some emails and did a few household chores.

This evening we had dinner at the California Club, a very exclusive, members only club that's been a fixture in Los Angeles since 1887. The evening was hosted by executives from Unified Grocers, Bristol Farms, and Smart & Final - so special thanks to all of them.

The club itself was amazing. Moved to it's current location in 1930 it was decorated by one of the leading New York designers of the times. It looks and feels like something out of the movies with 25 foot ceilings and rooms filled with dark wood panelling and antiques.

Above, Michelle from Dole sits in an antique chair in one of the hallways of the club. Notice the high ceilings, spaciousness and period decor.

I think everyone felt a little nervous and out of place as we arrived for the reception; we had to remind ourselves that we didn't need to whisper. As the waiters brought drinks and h'orderves we all began to relax and enjoy the evening, recognizing that we were unlikely to have the opportunity to attend an event here again soon, if ever.

Above, cocktail reception before dinner. Left to right: Michelle from Dole, John from Safeway, Myself, Maeliene Mira the FIM program Assistant Director/Den Mother, and Lloyd from Safeway.

Dinner in the Fireside Room followed featuring filet mignon, stuffed tomatoes, roasted potatoes and green beans. Dessert was chocolate cheesecake with berries and creme anglais. Our director, Tom Arnold, then introduced our hosts and explained that the reason for the dinner was to give all of us a chance to spend more time together in a social setting, get comfortable with each other and form stronger bonds. One of the biggest opportunities of the program is for us to learn from our peers and understand what they do, how they do it, and incorporate their perspective of the industry into our own. Our hosts, most of whom are graduates of the Food Industry Management program, then took just a few minutes to echo Tom sentiments and congratulate us on being recognized within our companies as having "high potential."

Above, Michelle from Dole (she seems to be in every picture), Christel from Safeway (she took most of the pictures) and Brooke from Safeway dining in the Fireside Room.

Above, Dawn from Safeway and Stephanie from Associated Foods were both sitting at my table. There are five people from Safeway in our FIM class. Stephanie is the youngest of us at 24. She works at her parents' independent grocery store in Elko, Nevada and did all the legwork herself to get into the program and convince her grocery cooperative to sponsor her in conjunction with WAFC.

After dinner we mingled a bit more and then took the opportunity to see some more of the club. Up on the third floor we found the terrace with a beautiful view of the city. Glass skyscrapers stood illuminated next to older buildings of architectural significance as a steady stream of tiny green and red lights marched across the night sky toward LAX. All in all a truly memorable evening.

Below, more pictures of my FIM classmates:

From left: Sue from Haggen, Tom from Food 4 Less, Juliana from Ralphs, and Andrea from Dreyer's with her husband.

Tracy from Albertson's with his wife. Tracy was an Army Ranger and received his Bachelor's Degree from USC in the '80's before entering the grocery industry.

Gary from Food 4 Less with his wife.

Tony from Bristol Farms with his wife.




Miguel from Costco with his wife Alberta. Miguel and Alberta are two of the nicest people I've ever met and that's really saying something.


Rebecca from Ralphs with her husband.


Jimmy from Costco with his wife.


Kim from Smart and Final with her husband.