Overlake hospitality director receives food service leadership award

Mark Eggleston, Director of Hospitality Services at Overlake Hospital Medical Center, received the 2010 Exemplary Leadership Award on June 8 from The Association for Healthcare Foodservice (AHF) at its annual conference in Austin, Texas.

Mark Eggleston, Director of Hospitality Services at Overlake Hospital Medical Center, received the 2010 Exemplary Leadership Award on June 8 from The Association for Healthcare Foodservice (AHF) at its annual conference in Austin, Texas. The award recognizes an association member who best reflects operational excellence, exhibits strong leadership skills and contributes results to AHF, their employer and community.

Over the past few years, Eggleston has demonstrated these characteristics while leading the transformation of Overlake’s food service program. Eggleston and his team developed a program for patients, visitors and staff focused on fresher, healthier food options, including organic dairy products, organic fruits and vegetables, whole-grain bakery items, sustainably raised fish and locally sourced products whenever possible.

The team worked with the city of Bellevue to launch a composting program for all food scraps, eliminated all Styrofoam in favor of compostable cups and containers, expanded the recycling program throughout the hospital campus and developed in-house “green teams” to promote healthy lifestyles at work and at home.

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Last year, Eggleston’s department launched its Season’s Dining Room Service program with 12 all new menus reflecting seasonal, fresh foods and restaurant-quality meals. Building on the success of that program, the department is revamping the menu in one of the hospital cafes with 98 percent organic products. In addition, Eggleston’s efforts have earned Overlake’s title as a King County Best Workplace for Recycling and Waste Reduction for 2010, the third year in a row.

“Mark has shown a great deal of creativity and commitment in taking Overlake’s food service program to the next level,” said David Schultz, Overlake’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. “Nutritional meals are a key component in our patients’ recovery and in maintaining good health. Mark has elevated the quality of our food and our service and we’re hearing great responses from both patients and staff.”

The Association for Healthcare Foodservice is a professional society dedicated to advancing self-operated healthcare foodservice as the industry best practice.