RGM Maggie D. on Choosing Summerwood & Taco Bell
Maggie D. has only been with Summerwood for four years, but her loyalty runs deep. Her entire career has been in quick service restaurants (QSR) and as the story goes, she had an offer on the table with Wendy’s when we lured her away at the last second!
“Something told me to take this job … and I’ve never regretted it.”
– Maggie D., RGM
“I was looking for a job when I came here,” she shares. “I loved Lancaster, so this is how we ended up here.”
Maggie and her wife moved to xxx, PA to be close to her wife’s family. In the midst of job decisions and interviews, she was thrown a curve ball: her sister suffered a stroke.
“I had to go to West Virginia,” she recounts. “I got in the car to go … and [Summerwood’s] Brian G. called me. [We] interviewed on the phone while I was traveling and he says, ‘Well, when you get back, will you interview with my boss?’ I said, ‘Absolutely.’”
Maggie didn’t get more than 30 minutes into her drive before he called back and put his supervisor on the phone! Both urged her not to accept Wendy’s offer until she returned. When she got back into town and they connected, she laughs to admit she turned down better pay to work for us!
The Big Why
Maggie was already sold on working in the QSR world by the time she joined Summerwood.
“With QSRs, you’re constantly busy all the time,” she explains. “And when you’re not busy, you’re busy getting ready to be busy.”
Maggie describes herself as “hyper-energetic” and constantly on the go. This may stem from the fact that her parents were truckers for 25 years. She and her younger sister spent summers traveling with them, though she says they didn’t get to actually see much of the country that way.
An appreciation for QSR coupled with a positive experience working for Taco Bell Corporate many years before got her in our door – and she says Summerwood’s people-first culture won her over.
“All my life I have fought for my people that I worked with,” Maggie shares. “When I came here, they … took care of their people, they put their people first.”
“They gave them training,” she continues. “If somebody was not doing well, they tried to figure out where they could put the person to make them fit. It was a process to let someone go because they wanted you to work with that person, instead of let them go. And these are all things that I had been fighting for my whole employment history.”
Maggie feels so strongly about caring for her colleagues that she says she’s lost jobs because of her advocacy. She believes in the importance of flexibility and accepting that people come to work carrying with them their own set of circumstances.
Summerwood’s care for its people and determination to find the right job fit for someone is one thing that fuels Maggie’s loyalty.
In fact, Maggie’s own situation took an abrupt turn. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and Summerwood never turned its back on her.
“This company took care of me,” she says. “They didn’t take my vacation time away from me … they made sure I had everything that I needed.”
Today, Maggie’s cancer-free! And she’s sure that she’ll retire from nowhere other than Summerwood. “I have never worked for a company that appreciated their people or took care of their people like Summerwood does,” she confesses.
Full Circle Leadership
Naturally, compassion and care extend into Maggie’s restaurant. She says that while her team operates like family, everyone knows she’s not afraid to both reprimand and praise.
After all, most of them have been together for four years. Maggie wants to see people succeed, so she works with the individual, rarely giving up. She says she’s had hires who were supposed to be out front who couldn’t handle service, so she moved them to preparing food. If someone can’t do that, she teaches them to fry. She keeps moving her team members throughout the kitchen until they find the right fit. “We find a place instead of just sending them out the door,” she shares.
“My team here is phenomenal,” she gushes. “I would put them up against anybody!”
And we would put YOU up against anybody, Maggie! Your management style is inspires greatness. Thank you for taking the time to mentor and lead in a way that makes a difference in other people’s lives.