When Nick Saccaro \u201901 was a student at Missouri Western, he completed an internship at Second Harvest Food Bank in St. Joseph, Missouri. That internship led him into a career in the food service field, and he never left. Today he is the president of Qwest Food Management Services in the Chicago area, a 650-employee company that provides food service to private and public schools.<\/p>\n
From his first campus visit, the Hamilton, Missouri native said he knew the Missouri Western professors cared.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel that way about other colleges I visited,\u201d Saccaro says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to imagine that a student would find a more accessible campus community than Missouri Western.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also, he noted that his business professors always made time for students after class to talk about how the lessons from class applied to the business world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was glad my business professors had real world experience, and hadn\u2019t spent their whole lives in a classroom,\u201d said Saccaro, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Management.<\/p>\n
Saccaro played golf for Missouri Western throughout his college career, and says some of his best memories were on the golf course. As president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, Saccaro valued the opportunities he had to work with people campuswide, especially Missouri Western\u2019s president, Dr. James Scanlon.<\/p>\n
The three-sport high school athlete said he still appreciates the opportunity he had to compete at the college level. \u201cNot everyone gets to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After graduation, he worked for Citizen\u2019s Bank and Trust in Chillicothe, Missouri. Then, just two years out of college, he was named executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank, where he served for three years. Saccaro took over the reins of Second Harvest\u2019s sister organization in Colorado Springs, Colorado for two years before entering the profit sector of food service. He began his presidency at Qwest in June 2014.<\/p>\n
Working for the nonprofit food banks, he says, taught him \u201chow awesome the responsibility is to treat employees with dignity and respect, and to be a good family place to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw a lot of families in St. Joseph and Colorado Springs who worked very hard at their jobs but still had to rely on the food banks to help feed their families.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I have the opportunity to shape the culture of an organization so the employees feel that their work is a place that treats them with dignity and gives them a decent wage. No matter who the employee is, they should be treated with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saccaro\u2019s usually out of the house by 6 a.m. each morning so he can get in a workout before heading to the office, and a lot of time during the day is spent in the schools that Qwest serves, \u201cmaking sure the relationship with clients is in a good spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back home around 6:30 or 7 p.m., he enjoys spending time with his wife, Kimberly, and young son, Quinn. \u201cNone of the stuff I did all day matters to him,\u201d Saccaro says of his son. \u201cI have to turn it off and be present for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to joining Qwest, he was vice president for Creative Dining Services, a job that found him on the road and away from home most evenings, so he really appreciates his current schedule.<\/p>\n
In his free time, he still likes to golf, and there was a set of clubs under the Christmas tree last year for his son.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I go back to Missouri Western and every time I pick up the magazine, I am proud of what Missouri Western has become,\u201d Saccaro said. \u201cEvery year it gets better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Nick Saccaro \u201901 was a student at Missouri Western, he completed an internship at Second Harvest Food Bank in St. Joseph, Missouri. That internship led him into a career in the food service field, and he never left. Today he is the president of Qwest Food Management Services in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4268,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/4268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}