General Food

By Wendy Cole

Your typical retired Marine Corps general is busy these days dodging sand traps on the golf course or second-guessing troop maneuvers in Iraq as a cable-TV talking head. But former Brigadier General Michael Mulqueen, who controlled U.S. reconnaissance plans during the Cuban missile crisis and served two tours of duty in Vietnam, puts in up to 60 hours a week commanding a work force of 90 employees and 8,000 volunteers. His mission: providing meals to 310,000 needy people in and around Chicago each year. Mulqueen, 66, is executive director of the Greater Chicago Food Depository, considered by some to be America's best-run food bank. One symbol of the program's success: thanks to a vigorous fund-raising effort, a gleaming, new $30 million headquarters the size of almost four football fields opened in May in a gritty industrial park on Chicago's southwest side.

Mulqueen has built the food bank, founded in 1978 by half a dozen private citizens, into a formidable fighting machine in the war on poverty. Chicago's needs are still rising: demand for food is growing about 15% a year. The amount of food distributed since 2000 has risen 30%, to 42.3 million lbs. a year, and fund raising has jumped 33%, to $9 million--at a time when economic turbulence has squeezed philanthropic giving. Mulqueen's weapons: strategies adapted from the for-profit world, combined with good old military discipline. Mulqueen endorsed such concepts as training, branding and competitive bidding--all of them borrowed from the corporate-management textbook. "What distinguishes us from other charities is that I run this like a business," he says. "Even though we're a monopoly here, I want to be at the leading edge in our field. If Wal-Mart went into food banking, we'd out-compete them."

Mulqueen picked up management ideas from Harley-Davidson and McDonald's. Following visits to these companies, he and his senior staff created rigorous training requirements for the agency heads affiliated with the food bank. His team is launching Pantry University, a program aimed at developing consistency in service and image. Staff members at 600 agencies, including shelters, soup kitchens and food pantries, will be expected to complete courses in food safety, nutrition, finance and information technology. Says Mulqueen: "We need accountability in the system."

Branding is part of the strategy too. "Our classes will all have the same look and feel and emotional stamp," says Naomi Berkove, who runs the training program. A marketing consultant has helped the training arm develop a brand image that centers around such in-house themes as "lasting connections" and "self-satisfaction." Mulqueen has boosted efficiency with a convenience "mart" so agencies can pick up food at any time.

When Mulqueen took the job 13 years ago, some board members objected to a white male running a program that serves a largely minority clientele. Then he stunned his staff by shaking up the status quo: he changed the banks, auditors and insurance brokers used by the food bank. "We were being charged too much," he says, noting that he reduced yearly workers' compensation costs 40%.

Mulqueen won over his team by "driving authority down," encouraging innovation. At a recent staff gathering, colleagues applauded information technology director John Lee and four co-workers as "Employees of the Quarter." Lee exclaimed, "At other places I've worked, the bosses didn't even know I existed." For his efforts, he got a $100 bill, a savings bond and an extra paid day off. Then they all retired to a nearby lobby to munch on shrimp and tortilla wraps. With Mulqueen in charge, no one at the food bank goes hungry.