His parents owned a bakery, a grocery store and a deli in the quaint Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. At about 4 a.m. he and his four younger brothers and sister would wake up before school to help prepare for the morning rush of customers.
Thirty years later, Director of Dartmouth Dining Services Pete Napolitano is still in the business, this time directing a department that provides food services to more than 4,000 hungry customers that flock to the dining halls every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Napolitano, who has been at the College for eight years, says he is never satisfied with the way things are.
As a testament to his credo, Napolitano reformed Dartmouth's dining system the day he started the job. He now continues to push ahead with his latest proposals to change Collis and Full Fare's role.
And he has had enough experience in the industry to know what needs to be changed. Napolitano leaned back in the chair of his office, covered with plush red carpeting and filled with family pictures, turning back the clock to his college years and beyond.
Years of work in food service
Napolitano attended James Madison University as an undergraduate. At James Madison, he took a job as a student employee in the cafeteria while playing football and double-majoring in marketing and management. The day after his graduation in 1976, he went to work -- as a manager at James Madison's dining services.
In 1979, Napolitano married his college girlfriend and moved with his family to Pennsylvania the following year to take a job as assistant director of the University of Pennsylvania's Hill House dining facilities.
He worked at Penn until 1983 with the same goal in mind -- "by the time I was 30, I wanted to be the director of dining services somewhere."
At Penn, he learned the ropes about departmental politics. "I learned a lot of lessons, especially those dealing with other people," he said.
"I also learned that some of the department's priorities may have to take a back seat to other campus-wide college priorities."
In 1983, the University of Rochester in New York recruited him for the directorship. Napolitano was to turn 30 on Sept. 5, but his job started Sept. 6. So, driven to meet his goal, Napolitano requested that he start work on the exact day of his 30th birthday. His boss agreed; mission accomplished.
"That was a fun job there," Napolitano said as he lounged back on his office chair and fiddled with his bright red and white paisley tie. "We changed the meal plan, offering more flexibility and variety, and we introduced a declining balance account."
In 1988, Napolitano had the opportunity to use his experience and skills at a position working in Dartmouth Dining Services.
When he first visited the campus in 1986 as part of a team to analyze DDS, he said he fell in love with the place. He told the supervisor then to let him know if a position opened up because "this place is a gem."
Two years later, a job opened up and he fended off 80 other applicants to get the position.
Next Stop: DDS
And as soon as he arrived at Dartmouth his credo took effect. He thoroughly reformed the dining system, taking the "scatter-gun approach," as he calls it.
"In this approach you shoot at will, and no matter what, you win," he explained. "Change was necessary, so I felt that whatever changes we would make would succeed."
The previous dining system required freshmen and sophomores to have 21-meal-per-week meal plans. There was also a separate dining facility for freshmen and upperclassmen. Eventually this system eroded into what exists today.
Napolitano said DDS started offering more flexibility in its menus and introduced comment cards with routing slips on the back so that the card is passed on to all the managers to read.
He said in the past DDS used to have a napkin board onto which students would write comments on napkins and post on the board.
He also receives comments over BlitzMail and "I always write back to anyone who takes the time to write to me."
Napolitano's team also renovated Collis Cafe, Byrne Hall and Home Plate and unified the dining halls so they did not have to report to different College administrators.
One of the goals followed through was to open up Thayer Hall to be "much more than a just food-service building." Thayer now houses the College Copy Center, Topside, the Student Employment Office and a student television lounge.
With all these changes accomplished, Napolitano followed up with another credo. "I don't care if we are successful 100 percent of the time. What is more important to me is that we keep trying. We will lose some, but at least we go down trying," he affirmed.
He said this challenge is what he faces now.
"So when I offer these changes as I am with Collis and such, we could fail. But at least I go out trying," he said. "Deep down inside I think it is the right thing to do."
"The sin in all of this is to know that something is wrong and not doing anything about it," he said.
Napolitano said DDS's food has won over the students in comparison to other colleges' food.
"The quality of food is better here, and I know this because students tell me," he said. "They go to another school and come back and say they are glad to be back."
"We spend a lot of time and effort on our menu and testing items and recipes," he added.
However, Napolitano still thinks there's room for variety. "All of our operations consist of the same things. We need to introduce new things," he said.
According to Napolitano another thing DDS has over other college food service facilities is that "we are not a top-heavy department. There are 15 of us and for $10 million in sales every year that's pretty good."
"So we have good communication with each other. We have weekly meetings and talk to each other almost every day. And we are always talking about the future -- three, four and 10 years out."
Napolitano also cited the diversity of the team, not only in comments and levels of professionalism, but also in personality.
"We have dreamers, realists and optimists on our team," he said.
And the team's goal: "always to exceed; to give people back more than they thought they got."
Napolitano reiterated his credo: "I'm never satisfied with the way things are. I'm always pushing ahead to do something different."
"I know what the perfect DDS looks like, but we never get it. But it doesn't stop me from remembering what the perfect DDS looks like."
"I'm driven to attain that level. And when you think you have it, your customers change and a new class comes in," he said, chuckling and then taking a sip from his 'Good For Life' coffee mug.
Napolitano turned his gaze to his computer's Disney Magic Kingdom screen-saver. "Response, quality-driven, and exceeding expectations --this leads you to the Magic Kingdom," he said.
The Magic Kingdom
It would take a lot of work to get to the "Magic Kingdom." And just working at DDS takes a lot of hours; "more than eight to ten hours a day. My day does not end at five," Napolitano said.
The hardest part of his job, he said, is trying to keep up with the information today --and this requires the more than eight to ten hours day.
"Managing information is the hardest part; to stay abreast of all the recent trends and new equipment and going to trade shows. And at the same time balancing the budget," he said.
The most rewarding part of his job, he said, are his customers -- the students. He said he enjoys the time he spends talking to students, like in the roundtable discussions held this term.
"We have some of the brightest students and they always want to engage you in an issue," he said.
Napolitano got quite a bit of practice dealing with customers considering his family history. In fact, he said "everything I know about providing service and care I learned from my parents."
"Also, giving personal attention and the way you make people happy about their purchase," he added.
Napolitano took the opportunity to cite some advice from his mother. "She used to tell me: 'Pete, the customer's right 98 percent of the time. The other two percent you keep to yourself.'"
Napolitano said he's always kept the "2 percent" to himself. "If I get upset or irritated I try not to let them know. I try to be patient, but I wish I could be more patient."
As far as the future is concerned, Napolitano said right now he is very content and happy with what he is doing.
"It's a challenging job and my boss [College Vice-President Lyn Hutton] has given me a lot of support and flexibility to get my job done," he said.
Community Involvement
In addition to his duties as DDS Director, Napolitano is the regional director of the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS). "It's a rewarding thing to do in that I get to see other schools and how they deal with the same problems we deal with here."
Napolitano said he is also very active in the community and in his church. He is an eighth grade Sunday school teacher, sings in the folk choir and is a Eucharistic minister.
Napolitano lives in Wilder, Vt. with his wife, Ruth, of 17 years, and his two sons and two daughters.
