Corps Contributions: Dining Services
At Virginia Military Institute, there’s a top team providing high-quality services, support, and supplies to keep the Corps of Cadets running smoothly and looking sharp. In this series, Corps Contributions will take a look at VMI Auxiliary Services, and the people that power VMI behind the scenes.
Tracy Hiner said he got into dining services at the age of 15. It was a chance at a summer job. He started as a dishwasher but had the opportunity to work with a chef and the rest was history. He enlisted in the Navy to work as a cook, then went on to receive his culinary degree and worked as an executive chef for 15 years.
Hiner is the general manager for dining services at Virginia Military Institute through Parkhurst Dining. He does a little bit of everything — from managing the dining facilities (Crozet Hall, PX, and The Arsenal), on post to serving up food, and managing a team of 120 employees.
He’s held this position for about a year, coming from Mary Baldwin University, where he held a similar position.
“VMI is different,” he said. “I feel like I can make a difference here and I certainly love the team.”
His first day on the job, he walked in, asked what he could do and he was immediately put on the food line. What he wasn’t prepared for was the mass number of cadets that came rushing in for breakfast.
“It was like 800 to 1,000 cadets at once and so it felt like a swarm of bees around you,” Hiner said. “So you’re constantly saying, ‘Excuse me,’ so that you can put new pounds of food on. But what amazed me was how courteous [the cadets] were.”
Cadets march down for food twice during the day — once for breakfast and another for supper. This is when the dining hall is abuzz with activity. Breakfast roll call has a march-down at 7 a.m. and it’s served from 7 to 9 a.m. Dinner, or lunch, is from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Supper roll call has a march-down at 6:30 p.m. and is served from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
Hiner said they have corporate standards to follow in food preparation and serving — what they call their “gold standard.” They cook from scratch, using fresh ground beef and more. They also hold classes and orientations for their staff to talk about standards and the approach they take in the dining hall.
There’s a five-week cycle menu that’s written by the chef, which is seasonally based and also changed up with cadet input. It’s constantly changing, he said. Hiner’s goal with regularly-scheduled meetings is to interact with the cadets and ask what they like and what they don’t like, along with any changes dining services need to make. Some main staples include chicken parmesan, pasta dishes, and steak. This year, there will be an Asian fusion bar available.
There are monthly dining service committee meetings, where cadets can come and give their input. Hiner said that sometimes the cadet count ranges from 30 to 100, giving their opinion on what should be served.
“We just make sure that we listen,” he said. “There’s been a lot of subtle changes that we’ve made based on them. We interact with them, we make sure they’re happy. It’s kind of like at home when you put a meal together and you serve it to your family. You’re there to make sure that everybody’s happy and they have what they need.”
In order to ensure the food is served fresh, Hiner says they batch cook. They have grab-and-go options for dinner, but for the larger meals (breakfast and supper), new batches are served and simultaneously swapped out as cadets roll through.
Hiner credits his staff to being able to pull off an operation like this seamlessly. He also likes to give the spotlight to his staff, featuring them on a rotation through something he calls Parkhurst People. There’s also an associate of the year award.
“We wouldn’t be able to do this without each other. So we depend on each other. We spend a lot of time together. So the team is everything,” he said.
There was also a new program started this year to support VMI’s cadet-athletes, Hiner said. Dining services offered each coach an open practice meal — football was one of the first teams to come back and be offered the new program. Staff prepared a special menu and meal specifically for them including, pasta, rice, flank steak, grilled chicken, blackened salmon, roasted zucchini, red onions, tomatoes, and Caesar salad. Hiner said they received a lot of compliments on the food.
“I enjoy the big picture. I’m a chef by trade so obviously, I love the creativity side. I like making people happy through food,” he said. But, there’s also the business side to the job. “You’re managing relationships not only with your customer but also with your client, so putting all these pieces together like a puzzle, and just making it run as efficiently as it can and being consistent in quality is what drives me.”
