Fort Bragg dining facilities compete
for best in Army

by Eve Meinhardt
Paraglide

photo by Eve Meinhardt/Paraglide Christopher Melvin, right, prepares one of the side dishes for lunch service at the 82nd Airborne Division Special Troops Battalion Dining Facility as George Macht, chairman, International Food Service Executive Association, monitors the food preparation as part of the judging for the large garrison, Department of Army level, 42nd Annual Philip A. Connelly awards program. Nov. 5.

It’s been a long journey for civilian contractors who work and manage the U.S. Army Special Operations Command Dining Facility and the 82nd Airborne Division Special Troops Battalion Dining Facility. Both facilities are representing Fort Bragg at the 42nd Annual Department of Army level Philip A. Connelly awards program; hoping to garner honors as the best small and large garrison dining facilities in the Army.

Their evaluations began in January, as they competed against other dining facilities across Fort Bragg, to be named the best on the installation.

From there, they moved on to the Installation Management Command-Southeast Connelly competition and were evaluated and judged in mid-July. The USASOC DFAC came out on top for the small garrison category and the 82nd DSTB DFAC was named the best in the large garrison category.
The USASOC DFAC hosted the DA-level judges Oct. 27 and the 82nd DSTB was evaluated Nov. 5.
Employees at both facilities seemed optimistic about their chances.

“We’ve placed first twice already this year, I’m hoping we do for this one, too,” said Alberto Cordew, a cook at the USASOC DFAC who received special recognition by the judges for his teriyaki catfish. “We’ve done a lot of work to get this far, it’s a great team and a great work environment,” he said.

“I think we did really good and I hope we impressed them. Not just impressed them, over-impressed them, actually,” said Lemuel Webb, a cook at the 82nd DSTB DFAC, who was
celebrating his birthday the day of the competition. Webb said winning would be the perfect birthday gift.

Harry Von Ruckel, the installation food activity supervisor, said he thinks both facilities deserve to win.

“Truthfully, I think our chances are really good. Both the USASOC and DSTB dining facilities are excellent and set the standard for the Army. As soon as you walk into them, you can sense the pride. They excel at everything they do,” said Von Ruckel.

The managers of both facilities have been under constant pressure to keep the standards high at their facilities and improve operations with each evaluation.

“Each time we win, the quality of our performance goes up a notch and stays that way. We won’t change the way we do business when the evaluations are over,” said Alvin Melver, manager, USASOC DFAC. “Now, it’s just the waiting part that’s hard. There’s going to be a lot of tension from now until we find out in December.”

Alonzo Powell, manager of the 82nd DSTB DFAC agreed that waiting for the results is going to be tough.

“We’re the best in the world and we know it. We just had to prove it to the judges and hopefully we did,” said Powell. “We just have to wait and see.”

While neither facility will find out if they won until mid-December, each will continue their daily mission of providing quality food service to the Soldiers of Fort Bragg no matter what the results are.