Talking about his position as Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) senior specialist in the Division of Food and Nutrition Services (DFNS), Kevin Carifi says, “This job has a lot of moving parts. It’s affected by everything. The war in Ukraine affects us. The collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore has affected us.”
The war affected the supply side, particularly Ukrainian wheat. With the collapse of the bridge, ordinary items that came through the Port of Baltimore, such as trays and utensils, became scarce. This is to say nothing of the consequences of the global pandemic, which he can go on about at considerable length and with some pride. “We are now an essential service,” he says.
Kevin’s position in school food and nutrition services was serendipitous for someone who planned to spend many years in the corporate world.
From Parsippany, New Jersey, the son of an accountant and an elementary school teacher, Kevin jokes that he began his current career when he found a summer job in a deli. “It was very social, and I stuck with it,” he says. “It was my introduction to the hospitality world.”
He originally went to Widener University in nearby Chester, Pennsylvania, for business administration, but he discovered the school had an excellent hospitality program and switched into it. He recalls fun internships at Harvey’s Resort Casino in Nevada and Walt Disney World in Florida.
Kevin’s first real job was with New York Sports Clubs, managing daily operations for a New Jersey health club with a staff of 35. “I learned a lot as a young manager since I had little experience and listened to my team’s concerns,” he says. “The lesson was great, and I continued the practice wherever I worked.”
From there, he moved to Sodexo North America, a global leader in food services and facilities, and began a career in corporate dining. A while later, he transitioned into school services, starting as a floating general manager.
Soon he became operations manager for the Atlantic City School District; the Pittsgrove and Deerfield School Districts; the Deptford County School District; and District of Columbia Public Schools, eventually becoming responsible for 90 cafeterias and a $25 million business. It was fascinating and rewarding, he says, to work with kids in mind and promote a healthy lifestyle.
Everything changed in 2018 when he found and won a position in Montgomery County Public Schools, starting out as a school-based supervisor for DFNS. He quickly worked his way up to his current position as senior specialist, providing products and services to all MCPS school and district locations. Since then, he has become an active member of the Montgomery County Association of Administrators and Principals (MCAAP) Local 146 and a cabinet member of Montgomery County Business and Operations Administrators (MCBOA) on the business and administration side.
“I really enjoy giving tours of the DFNS central production facility and warehouse,” Kevin says. The tours are a way to interact with students and school administrators, who also participate in tastings of current and future menu items. “I like to do tastings with the students,” he says. “You get a lot of good feedback from them.” The feedback is not just about taste but also about naming menu items. “We named a potential new menu item ‘meatless taco,’ and students developed ‘farmhouse taco.’”
In 2020, the global pandemic hit, and Kevin’s world turned upside down. “It was huge,” he recalls. “We never closed. The night they closed the schools we stayed there to get ready for Monday’s lunches.”
They soon opened curbside locations and created pods of teams for different sites, with A and B teams in case one team was affected by the contagion. “This was a humanistic management of people, and we got to know each other very well,” he says.
Medical professionals were considered first on the front line, and food service personnel were considered second. They were vaccinated in that order, before anyone else.
Today, there is an expectation that if schools are closed for an emergency, such as a storm, lunches are still to be provided. “That’s what I mean about being an essential service,” he says.
As for everyday life in Montgomery County, Kevin thinks it is ideal. The location is perfect for his wife, Emily, who is a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health. They highly regard the public schools, where their daughter Olivia, 9, is going into fourth grade and Alyssa, 6, is entering first. Olivia eats in the school cafeteria, but Alyssa is somewhat limited by allergies.
“Having a child with a multitude of allergies has taught me much more about my job,” he says.
Working in food, Kevin started experimenting with recipes at home “to better my skills. I watch videos, TV series, and enjoy cookbooks to further my knowledge. My kids help make pasta with me, and my wife has taken on homemade bread.” Recently, he has been exploring Italian food from different regions, including Campania in the south, where his grandfather lived in the small town of Ottaviano before emigrating.
Sometimes, however, he steps back, remembers the COVID epidemic and muses, “I was nervous at the time, but it was very rewarding. You were doing good every day.”
