Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazines is an industry resource connecting foodservice operators, equipment and supplies manufacturers and dealers, and facility design consultants.
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58 • FOODSERVICE EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES • MAY 2015 Clark Associates may operate three distinct distribution channels, but they are all infuenced by the vision of CEO Fred Clark. FE&S; sat down with Clark to learn more about what makes this dynamic company and its leader tick. FE&S;: Your company's roots trace back to an electrical contracting business your father helped start. How did he feel about you enter- ing the foodservice business? FC: My father passed away last August. He never really understood what we did in the foodservice business but he was always proud of what we built. He never really got involved in the foodservice side of the business but I could have never gotten into this industry without his capital. He didn't hover over me or tell me what I could or could not do. And I try to do the same with our division presidents. Many of them work in diferent build- ings and do their own thing. And I spend most of my time in procurement and the overall business services side of the company. FE&S;: You are a second-generation family business but frst generation in foodservice. How does this beneft your company? FC: I never had anyone telling me "that's not the way we do things." So being a first-genera- tion foodservice business gives us the oppor- tunity to paint our own landscape, do our own thing. We can look at the way everyone else does things and take a little bit from here and a little bit from there to create a hybrid and make it better. Second- or third-generation businesses so often get caught in following the way things have always been done. The words "this is the way things have always been done" are not words we allow people to use in our company. FE&S;: The fact is your company is growing so fast that the by the time you go back to do something, what you did before probably does not work, does it? At Clark Associates you really don't have the opportunity to get stuck in your ways. FC: The industry is changing. The players within the industry are changing. Technology is chang- ing. So you can't sit there and say this is how we do something. We always try to collect as much data as possible, analyze it and make the best decision possible at that time. If it does not work, we will back up, evaluate it and try again. Catching Up with CEO Fred Clark