Thelma L. Becker

Nation's Restaurant News, May 21, 1990

Elementary and Secondary Schools

THELMA L. BECKER

A pioneer of nutritional school programs, Becker directs her strong work ethic and energy into developing healthy and appealing student lunches

SOUDERTON, Pa. -- Thelma Becker, the director of food services for the Souderton Area School District and the winner of this year's International Foodservice Manufacturers Association's Silver Plate Award in the Elementary and Secondary Schools category, was literally born to be in the foodservice industry.

Becker's grandparents owned a restaurant that her parents also worked in before Prohibition led to its closing in the early 1930s. Her views were shaped early by a home economics teacher, who implored her to adopt a strong work ethic. Her attitudes were solidified even further when her father's heart attack created the awareness of healthful eating that she advocates today.

"I cultivated an interest in the food business from my grandmother [Polly] and mother [Doris]," Becker says. "It was kind of contagious."

So contagious that it has led to a 30-year career in the foodservice industry. It also rubbed off on her sister, Alma, who prepares food at Cabrini College, near Valley Forge, Pa.

Becker was the foodservice director in the Councel Rock School System in Newtown, Pa., for seven years. The last 23 years have been spent in Souderton, which is about 60 miles northeast of Philadelphia.

Becker will be honored for her accomplishments May 21 at IFMA's 36th annual Gold & Silver Plate Awards Banquet at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. She is eligible for the Gold Plate Award and the title "Foodservice Operator of the Year."

Becker's road toward the award was paved early. She said her grandparents taught her integrity, the ability to work with people and the ability to recognize that if a job is to be done, it is to be done well.

"I tried to follow that through to my career," says Becker, who termed her age 60 and holding. "I truly believe they were my roll-setting models."

Becker says her mother, who was the business manager at the restaurant, taught her profit and loss statements as well as to keep improving at her job.

Miss Whittle, the elementary-school home economics teacher in Frankford, Pa., taught Becker merchandising and the impetus to set goals in her life.

The near tragedy of her father (Cyril), who suffered a heart attack in his early 40s, shaped her views on the importance of health-oriented food. He changed his eating habits and lived another 25 years before dying of an unrelated disease.

"Even before the recent publicity of cholesterol, I recognized it was one of the reasons my father had a heart attack," Becker explains. "We wanted to cultivate their [students] interest in food without having a high fat and high sweet content."

Becker was the first person in Pennsylvania to put salad, deli and potato bars in all schools, including elementary schools. She installed equipment to produce nutritional food items on site to establish quality and create savings. She was the first elementary-and secondary-school foodservice director in Pennsylvania to negotiate agreements with producers and processors to have foods in shapes familiar to students, like batter-dipped chicken.

Becker also developed several ideas to stimulate students' interest in school lunch. The "Rite Bite" program gave students a chance to sample less-popular new items produced by national packers, like a trail mix of dates, figs, raisins and nuts.

"Take a Tote" is designed to interest younger students in bagged lunches by having a different combination of hogie sandwiches and dessert treats, like a peanut butter package, every day.

Becker's adeptness in quality control is exemplified through her use of a Liqui-fill machine, which allows the school district to package its own fruit juices, puddings and gelatins.

As an administrator, Becker started using a computer program eight years ago -- which she said is long before other schools -- that contains inventory and budget reports and saves the district $70,000 a year on labor and duplication errors. An on-site bakery generates yearly sales of $175,000, while another $25,000 is raised during the school year by catering community and local events.

In their own way Becker's programs go back to her youth.

"I like to see things change not for the sake of change, but to make the programs better for the customers and to invigorate the people working in the program," Becker says. "My mother always tried to improve upon what was done. My mother was never one to sit around."

Nor is Becker. She wants to continue showing students how valuable school lunch programs are to them. She would also like to seek more nutritional foods in the lunchroom.

Becker described winning the Silver Plate Award as a humbling experience, particularly because it means her peers are saying that she's good at what she does.

Thelma Becker

Born: April 1, 1929

Education: Trenton State College,

Trenton, N.J., bachelor of science in