Hello, supply chain squad, this is Katie. This is Courtney. Today, we have Erica theme joining us. Erica is currently the chief supply chain officer for feeding America. With a relentless focus on an America where no one is hungry, she's working to make food production more sustainable, increasing access to nutritious food and solving the complex problem of hunger. Erica's career has spanned quality, manufacturing operations and end-to-end supply chain. She has a BS in chemical engineering from Iowa State and an MBA from the University of Minnesota. She has also long been a personal role model for both myself and Courtney, a trailblazer for women in supply chain, paving the way, showing us a path and cheering us all on. We are so excited to have Erica on the show with us today. Welcome, Erica. All right, so Erica, we're going to jump in. We know you're super busy. First, we just want listeners to know about you and your background, personally and professionally. Yeah, well, you know, I was born on a Navy base in California during the Vietnam War and raised in Minnesota. My parents were educators. I have a sister and I'll put it in a plug. I went to the high school where Tim Walz, the current vice president, president of Canada, he was a teacher at my high school. So the yellow claim to fame there, you know, I fell in love with chemistry in school and went on to study that as an engineer and then came to work for General Mills, right after graduating from, from college and spent 27 years working in different capacities at General Mills and have been here at Feeding America for the last three years. I live in Minneapolis. I work in Chicago, so I do a little bit of a longer commute than most and enjoy spending time with my partner, David. We have a dog, Murray, who brings us a lot of joy and we like to travel and I like to garden and spend a lot of time with my nieces. So that's a little bit about me. Okay. If you see someone on the street and they're like, Erica, what do you do? What is your job? How do you explain what you do? And then second part of it, when did you know that supply chain was for you? Yeah. You know, I answer that question, Courtney, a little differently now that I work in the space and food insecurity and for a nonprofit. And it's, it's really a pleasure if someone asked me what I do because it's just really part of my heart now in that we come to work each day, really trying to increase access to nutritious food for people. There are 44 million Americans who are food insecure. That number jumped almost 30 percent during the pandemic. And, um, you know, we, we've got a lot to do. We've got a lot of food waste in this country. And part of my role in supply chain is to make sure that we're connecting healthy nutritious food to people who need it and making sure that we're getting the right types of food to the right places at the right time too. So there's a lot, a lot that comes over from supply chain there, but it's really just making sure that we're, we're helping those neighbors out and getting the access to really food, which should be a right for all of us. How did I know, like, how did I know it was supply chain? No, I talked about, um, having, I really liked chemistry. I had a chemistry teacher in high school who was just a mentor to me. And I remember him saying, you know, this is back in the, this is back in the 80s. That's going to date myself. You know, he, he, he said, you know, there aren't a lot of women in engineering. And if you like this chemistry thing, you know, you should give it a try. And, and you might find there's lots of opportunities for you and ways to kind of pave, pave away. So I, I did that. I studied chemical engineering. And, um, when I came to general mills, I wasn't in supply chain. I was actually in a quality and food safety role. I did not know that. Yeah. Yeah. I did that for about the first, first eight years of my career. And I was working at a plant location as a quality manager. And I, I had a boss, a gentleman named Ru Patel who I bet you both know, who, um, you know, I said, I, I really like leading teams. I, you know, this, this opera opportunity to lead an organization, to build talent, to, you know, create, um, you know, a mission or with a team and really get things done was exciting. And I didn't, I didn't want to leave that, that environment. And, and if you've worked on a manufacturing plant, you, you both know that there's just something special about the impact you can have. And they're kind of the real time problem solving that goes on. The way that, you know, people can be part of that and you can impact people's careers. And so my, my boss at the time said, you know, well, well, to really explore that, Erica, you just need to go work night shift. He said, you know, he said, you need to go, you know, work the team leader shift. So I was a quality manager. You go work the night shift first line supervisor role and, and, uh, you come, come back to me after 90 days and let me know if you want to really try this out or not. So I really owe a lot to Ru for letting me take a chance on myself and that capacity. And it was just really, you know, a chance to put the heartbeat of operations into that love I had for being part of teams and leading teams. And I never looked back after that. Did that cross functional move from, from quality to supply chain? Yeah, I didn't know the Erica only because I was talking to your LinkedIn and from, oh, she was in quality. I had no idea. I always knew you as operations leader and that, and you're a wonderful leader. So I just great to hear. Kayne and I were talking like how this is such a cup filler for us, like hearing just the joy and for what you do and the heart that you have for that. So it's, it's really awesome to hear that. And as you, this kind of leads into the next question. So you made this transition earlier in your career from quality over into operations and then broader supply chain. But recently, like the last few years, you transitioned from, you know, maybe a more traditional corporate world, right? And I loved how you were talking about your new role and how it's like in your, in your heart, but can you talk a little bit about like, as you've made this transition, as you've made this change, would have been some of the challenges. And maybe would have been some of the rewards as well from taking your supply chain experience from corporate and applying it to this mission driven organization. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great question because I think, you know, I had made up things in my head about what it might be like. I had served on the board of a food bank and knew, you know, you know, if you work in the food industry in the United States, you've probably been on the loading dock with something you misformulated or put in the wrong package or put the wrong code date on that at some point, a food bank or a food pantry came to help get to people in need. So I was familiar with this work and had an opportunity to look at a career change and, you know, things that I thought might be different that are absolutely not different are the amazing talented people. There are tremendous great people that do this work and care so much. We have really strong strategic planning and operational processes too. I also, I also thought when a smaller organization have the same kind of, whether it's, you know, promotion advancement, strategic planning, budgeting processes, you know, I feel like we've got, you know, very much the same as what I have been used to and counted on in the past. We use an impressive amount of data and technology, you know, to help make data informed decisions and have real time analytics to our work. So that's just another thing that I was coming in wondering about. If that would be as familiar as it was for me working in a bigger corporate environment, things that were really different. Where I had to like, oh, this is really different. Once you build a great strategic plan and a budget model, you got to go out and fundraise for it. You know, there's not a, there's not an office of the treasury. So really understanding that there's a little hustle, you know, you've got to make sure that you can promote and market the work, like, hey, we need more money to pay for transportation or to put an equipment that helps us sort, you know, produce that needs to be handled or washed. So there's a little bit of a sales component to my job. We've got to work with donors and make sure that donors, you know, financial donors understand the importance of our work and they get excited about it. We have a board of directors. So ultimately, you know, our organization reports into a board of directors and our CEO reports to that board. I guess, I guess that's not entirely different than, you know, the structure of a corporation, but, you know, our board plays a really important rule. They are a hands-on board. They help shape the direction of the organization. So it's been really fun to lean into that part of this role and just to be part of an active board of directors organization. And then one thing for the two of you that, you know, you can come back and help me with this is demand planning and demand forecasting. And it was it was never easy in CPG. But when you think about, you know, and I pause because I demand is not how I look at it, but it's really neat that people have people have the need to access food. And in a supply chain role and the team that I work with, we try to predict how much food is needed when and it's really predicting need. And that can that can vary so much. There can be a day where a family has a, you know, a car repair bill. And they need food and they didn't need it for the last, you know, six months. Or it could be a persistent need. It could be a disaster response where we need to get food into an area where there hasn't been power or there's been a flood or a fire, other disaster. So really trying to, here's an example of supply chain people will be familiar with you plan for food to get to a pantry or a food distribution. And you try to predict how much food to have on hand for that period of time. Two, one of two things happen, either you run out of food, meaning there are more people who come for food and you run out at the end of that period or the end of that day. So you didn't plan for enough or you plan for too much. And it's really, it's really hard to take food back to a warehouse and re inventory it when you didn't distribute it all. So, you know, a lot of times we, you know, tend to give like at the very end of a distribution, well, instead of taking, you know, one bag of groceries, take two. So, you know, we're really trying to figure out how we can correlate things that happen in the economy and in the environment, like when a child tax credit kicks in, you know, need for food could go down when unemployment rates go down, the need for food could go down. So we're really trying to correlate other external factors that could help us be more predictive to be sure that we always have enough food. I was just going to say it's fascinating to think about that because it is demand planning, but it is very different variables and it almost feels like your stakes are higher if you get it, get it wrong, you know. So I think that's really interesting. So you kind of talked about it, Erica, around just the partnerships and the ecosystem that has to work together. Any additional thoughts on as you think about supply chain ecosystem and the relationship with the donors, suppliers, community organizations. Can you talk about the importance of that? You kind of, you did kind of talk about that in your story. But any other kind of little nuggets as you think about how uniquely in your role, how closely those ecosystems have to work together. Yeah, yeah, you know, another maybe a contrast to my experience working at a CPG company would be instead of, you know, the cloud of being a big organization, we could, we could work a lot with suppliers and expect them to do things in a standardized way. We would have a network of manufacturing plants and distribution centers that we'd try to standardize how we did reporting or managed operations. In the Feeding America network and not unlike other nonprofit organizations, if you think about United Way or Habitat for Humanity, we're a federated organization. So I'm part of a national organization group and there are 200 partner food bank organizations in every state and Puerto Rico that are that are each an independent 501(c)(3) charity. So they each have their own executive director or CEO and their own board of directors. So one of the things that I really have to lean into as a skill is building relationships and trying to work through influence. So when we want to roll out a new technology and ask everyone to use it, there's, there is not a kind of a top down way to have a mandate for that. We've got to do a lot of things like pilots. We've got to do proof cases. We've got to create energy around a pull for that in the organization. So that's a skill we've all used probably in our careers, but I've really had to lean into really making sure that we're building deeper relationships that we're listening. We've got our ear to the ground and what really works and doesn't work for organizations. We understand that there are, there are big medium and small food bank organizations and they have different resources to do different things. So making sure that we're not bringing something that's a one size fits all. So that kind of wondering, then, as you're going through all of this, so I don't think I appreciated the complexity that you're managing, because it's not all directly tied to each other. It's a ton of influence. And as you're piloting these programs or you're trying to roll things out, how do you think about what was success? Like how do you think about metrics? How do you think about measuring success, whether it's running the operation? Or maybe it's rolling out some of these new things. How might that look and feel different than maybe some of your previous experience? Yeah, yeah, a couple of ideas there. You know, one that I just came to mind is we have just completed for the first time a strategic framework is how we're calling it. But think about a strategic plan for the entire organization. Each food bank and even our national office here in Chicago, we have a strategic plan we work off of, but we've never had a uniting strategic framework for the organization, and we're just coming off of about an 18-month process doing this together. Lots of committees that have worked, membership from all over the Feeding American Network has been a part of it, and really working to kind of be sure that we're meeting organizations where they're at. There are some organizations that are still very much focused on their work as food banks, making sure that we have food, and we use the phrase food to feed the people who are in line. And then we have food banks that do that and are also working on strategies to shorten the line. So that might be working on advocating for supplemental nutrition assistance or SNAP, EBT solutions or helping people gain skills. A lot of food banks have culinary training programs or forklift warehouse operations during the program. So working on ways to do workforce development and economic mobility. And we have even more parts of our network that do those things that are also working on activities that would end hunger altogether. And this is a lot more legislative work, political advocacy work, thinking about all the different, you know, hunger is kind of a symptom of other causes. So thinking about whether it's minimum wage, thinking about housing opportunities, thinking about universal free meals in schools. So this framework was something where we really, as a metric, as a process that we're using, had to find on ramps for every part of the organization to see themselves in it. We have really, we have really big goals that were, were clearly dedicated to delivering against, but things that we're trying to measure is making sure we have the right mix of foods. We, we want to make sure that we have foods that are culturally relevant for people that they find familiar when they come to food banks. And when we're, we're doing that through donated food, that's not always really predictable for us. So how do we supplement that with some purchasing of food or being sure that we really understand what kind of foods are needed in different communities? Um, we measure pounds, you know, we measure how many pounds that we can source and distribute in the organization. We measure our, our, our freight, um, our freight costs. We spend a lot of money to move food. So those are probably similar things to what, what you're familiar with. And then we just really, we work to make sure that we're also measuring how many new partners we're bringing into this mission work, work with us. So that could, you know, naturally, that would be new donors, but it can also be new groups that can help us in the movement to end hunger, which could be other food rescue organizations. It could be community associations, um, and, and other partners across public and private sectors as well. But I'm just curious, because this is so interesting to me, how big is your organization, like, I'm just curious, the complexity of it, the scope and the scale. And how would you translate that for us? Well, I, you know, when I started to interview for this job, um, you know, someone said, it's, it's a feeding America position. And I thought it was my local food bank. Yeah. I know a lot about that, you know, it's where I volunteer on the weekends. But so, uh, it's a good question and I will answer it. I'm imperfectly the national organization of feeding America. And we've been, we've been around as an organization almost 50 years. Uh, we have an office in, um, Chicago here where I am today in Washington, D.C. And we have about 400 staff at the national level. There are about 200 partner food banks across the country and they range in size from staff of probably 40 to over 200, uh, at each of those locations. We have 21 organizations that serve as partner state associations. So they work on behalf of food banks in the state to do state level advocacy work in large part in some sourcing work. Uh, we have a handful of what we call regional cooperatives, uh, that are, they serve as hubs and mixing centers to bring in large scale donations, um, typically a produce, meet dairy products. And so as you look at, look across that, that's a, that's a big number of people in the broader organization. And then beyond that, uh, we partner with over 60,000 community food distribution organizations. So these are the, this is where you would find food at a pantry, at a Boys and Girls Club, a senior center. So, um, our network is all, is, is all of those. And Erica, how do you, how do you use innovation as you think about, um, optimizing that level of scale and complexity to really make sure to your point that you're distributing the food and then reducing waste as well. So yeah, what, what tools do you guys use or systems or processes? Well, we've got a few, a few that I'm really proud of. One is, um, a software program called meal connect. It's, it's broadly used as an app. Uh, this tool is our kind of unified platform for sourcing and sharing food. It has functionality that can allow a food bank to go to a grocery store and schedule a rescue. So this happens like every day, um, food banks or their, um, community food distribution partners are, you know, visiting the Kroger's Publix Walmart's picking up food that, that is close to code, but still, you know, if they're not, if they want to go to a grocery store, they can schedule that appointment, they can track the pounds, the types of food received and then they can look at that data over time. So it's got some really nice data visualization tools on it. It also sends that data real time back to other organizations that need to track it. So when, when I get a call from one of those grocers that says, you know, in the last 12 months, how much have we donated or how many carrots did we donate or how's this store doing versus that store? We can, you know, use all that data to get back to donors so that they can um, it's also a marketplace that allows a lot of partners that do a company like a crafter, general mills or a produce grower to post loads at truck load quantities. So I've got, I've got the, you know, the blueberry, you'll play yogurt. We forgot to put the blueberries in. Um, still great, you know, but we're not able to sell it. Um, can you come and get a truckload from Murphy'sboro, Tennessee or a grower? I've got, you know, right now I think we've got like 160 loads of potatoes right now that we're trying to process through the Meal Connect marketplace app and then we do some purchasing too. So if a food bank needs to supplement the, the food they're getting through donations with purchasing, we have a purchasing portal where we have vendors that we do negotiations for things like you maybe can tuna fish, um, turkeys around Thanksgiving are a big thing that we do a group buy on. So those are some central things that we, we try to innovate to make sure that there's kind of an easy button for folks at you supply chain folks that sit at the food banks. You know, other things that we're doing with innovation are really, it's a really around this regional cooperative hub model I told you about. This is relatively new where we have nine locations throughout the country where we are bringing in and mixing large quantities of food, some of which need additional handling. For example, we work with some protein suppliers that will send in 2,000 pound gay lords or totes of raw chicken, uh, and that chicken, you know, needs to be handled within, you know, I might have this wrong, but like 48 hours, it has a very short raw shelf life. It either needs to be packaged and sent on to distribution or frozen. And so we have operations that actually these cooperatives that have USDA onsite inspectors that help us handle meat and dairy products that are USDA inspected, we can repack bulk macaroni, bulk cereal, uh, so really making sure that we're innovating and finding ways to, you know, we don't need to do that in 200 places across the country, but used for stops. It is. It's, it's, I did not appreciate the scale of this operation. There are just so many things to think about. Okay. So this is sort of switching now. I mean, I could keep going on and on asking you all these kinds of questions. It's like, this is, but switching over more to a little bit more, like the leadership and career side. So starting with the leadership piece, um, what have you found from a style standpoint that's been both effective in like both these worlds that you've worked in? And then just kind of in general, how is like your leadership style evolved over time? Yeah. Yeah. We know one thing that's just been so gratifying for me is, you know, I mentioned how each of these feeding America food banks has its own leadership team and its own CEO. It's really, um, familiar and, um, helpful for me. I think about all the support and coaching I had in roles. Maybe where I worked at, at a corporate, and a corporate role. And I worked with plant managers. Uh, and I remember how many times I had a plant manager tell me, Eric, I think you got it wrong or before we make this announcement, let's think this through. So I get the benefit of working with, you know, nearly 200 different CEOs of these organizations every day. So it's been just, for me, as part of my leadership, been really important for me to invest in those relationships. And I'm, you know, I'm not a lifelong food banker. So I need to make sure that I'm also taking time to really appreciate the expertise in the organization. Um, understand that, um, you know, make sure that I'm not recreating things that, that are already working really well, um, leveraging those relationships. I, you know, I think things that, you know, communication, you know, I really try to continue to be a leader in how we provide clear communication on what we need from people where the organization is going, having that kind of clear, kind of true north direction for the team. Um, I left my time at General Mills feeling like I was really well equipped in the, uh, equity, diversity and inclusion space. And I am, I can, that is a leadership area. I am continuing to grow by leaps and bounds. Um, we, we really focus a lot on, you know, thinking about people at the center of our work and hunger, unfortunately, just proportionally affects community of colors in the United States, rural communities, children, um, so really making sure that it's, it's not just EDI is not just something we do as an organization, it's our work. Uh, so that's been, um, it's been a journey, a continued journey for me and something that it's helped me, you know, continue to live into that leadership skill and Erica, what advice would you have for someone who talked about this little bit around, you thought you knew what it was like a volunteer. I understand if someone says, Hey, I really do want to go into, um, a nonprofit career path, what certifications or volunteer opportunities, networking. Would you recommend to just gain some experience and build all those relationships in that sector? You know, maybe a piece of advice I'd give is, um, don't, don't think that it's going to be, um, a job you have to settle for a lower pay. Don't think it's a job that's going to be a cake longer, easy. Um, it's, it's, you know, it's, it's hard work. And it's, in many cases, it's work that, you know, it's very well compensated work. Um, for, for me, you know, I had some board experience, so I'd say, you know, if you have a chance to get on a board of a food bank or a pantry, that's one great way to understand how they work. Uh, as I was starting to look at nonprofit, um, leadership roles, being, there are so many sectors within nonprofit, uh, being clear on, you know, is, do you want to do global work in food insecurity? Well, that might be, you know, a group like, um, you know, United Nations, uh, has a world food program or, um, I mean, even thinking about, um, world central kitchen, you know, there's, there's programs that are really more related to international response or famine response. You know, is it a domestic program you want to be a part of? Do you want to be tied really closely to a community so that your work is, um, deep within a community you care about? So that's, those are great things to explore. And then I'll give a plug. This is actually a Minnesota author, her name is Marsha Ballinger. And she recently wrote a book called make the making the jump. Uh, and that's a great resource. If you're contemplating a move from the, um, for profit to nonprofit sector. Fantastic. All right. So now we're going to switch to some fun questions. Do you have a personal quote or a mission that you look by? You know, I, I don't, I was like, I've got this little quote thing of a calendar quote every day I was looking at, I think that'd be something in there. You know, I just, I just, you know, it took me a long, long time. It took me decades to feel this way, but I think it's just to be you. Um, you know, get, get a seat at the table. But when you're there, just be you. Um, I know there's another question here just around like advice you got or things like I, I remember a long, a long time during my career, um, getting on the golf league talked about golf as a hobby. Like, like, I, yeah, I bought golf clubs and took golf lessons. So I could be on the golf league with my mostly male counterparts at the time. Um, you know, the, the, you know, I like sport, I'm into a lot of sports. I don't, you know, I don't follow NFL football that much, but there were, like, there were a lot of group chats and sports analogies. And I really felt for a long time I conformed that, you know, I'm not a mother of children. You know, I, like, do I have to, do I have to do that to look like my role models? And, um, you know, it was helpful through, um, working with a lot of great leaders throughout my career to, to feel comfortable, to just bring who I am to the work. And, um, let other people see me as a leader in that capacity and as a role model, you know, it, that looks a little bit different sometimes and, um, be okay with that. And, and actually, um, feel like, just feel like how much capacity and energy you get back when you're not having to put on that kind of that false first impression. Shady, now we're joking that, yeah, this is our golf. So the podcast is our version of golf. But actually I went, I was like, okay. Okay. You're good. I don't know. So I've gone in iterations, Erica of I buy the golf clubs. I do the lessons. I go do it for a while that I'm like, why am I doing this? And then, and then I get rid of them. And then Katie and I, when we went to the awesome conference, uh, Donna Orander hosted us to golf together, we had a great time. And I was like, well, maybe we can do it again. And I'm like, I bought these clubs again. I have like literally one golf outfit that I rewear. Um, and I looked very official. Cause like when I have it on people like, Oh, are you good? I'm like, nope. I just went to Dix and was like, get the outfit. And it's like, yeah, I go through iterations. Yeah, I love, I love a good golf scramble. It's just that, you know, the 18 holes in the cart. Um, I can do nine, nine is okay. And I need, I mean, it has to be fun people. Like I do enjoy the talk in the banter and the cart, 18. And I'm like, I, it is, it is too much for me. But last question, what limiting, you kind of talked about this, I think, but I'm going to, we're going to try one more time. What limiting belief have you had through your career that no longer serves you? I, I would, I have been so fortunate. I, I'm just so grateful for the opportunities I've had. You know, when, when, when a piece of advice that I, I still curious, you know, people, people have said you should try something new. Um, when I thought it was not possible. So, you know, I've just having, having that cheerleader, having someone who really said, you know, you've never done this before, but we know you can do it. Um, so, so that sticks with me. And just, you know, thinking about how, how many times I didn't ask for an opportunity, you know, you know, I'd like to be an assistant plant manager. I wonder how that could happen. And instead of trying to, um, um, influence that or kind of control that destiny for myself, I, I, as an early career female on this work, I, I waited to have someone tell me we've got the opportunity for you now. So I've, I've even this last job change I've had. It's, it's hard for me to think about like negotiating a salary or, um, advocating for an opportunity for myself before someone came and said, this is your time Erica. So that, that would be, you know, a belief that, um, has had limited me. I kind of, you know, waited for someone, um, to think about me. And I think I hope that younger women that are coming into this profession, um, have that courage and belief in themselves that they should be shaping that and they should be asking for that. Um, and you don't have to be 10 years into your career to earn the right to do that. Boom, there you go. That's like, if you don't want to end this right now, she's like, this was a wonderful Erica, so many good things. I take some notes here. That's all for this episode of She's Applied Chains. We had a fantastic time with Erica, discussing how technology and data play a crucial role in making decisions and improving supply chain operations in the nonprofit sector. Erica also shared advice about how to pursue a career of nonprofit and the unique challenges she experiences. A huge thank you to our amazing editor and producer, Elise Darlaschott, from making this show possible and a big thank you to all of our listeners, the supply chain squad for tuning in. Your support means the world to us. If you love what you heard today, please take a moment to rate, review, and share this podcast with someone you think would benefit from hearing it. We'd love to hear from you. If you have any topics you'd like to cover or if you'd like to join us for an episode, please reach out using the links in the show note. Stay tuned for our next episode in two weeks, or we'll talk to Samita Pinnator. Samita is currently the operations excellence lead at Form Labs, a leading manufacturer of 3D printers. Katie and I crossed paths with Samita early in her career and has been so fun to watch her continue to grow and develop across companies and roles. See you soon, supply chain squad. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
