Her Story
About Helen
I've been in the food industry for 40 years, and it's been my passion from the very beginning. I started right out of college making food on the line at a large airline catering plant with over 350 employees, and I worked my way up to Garde Manger Chef. From there, I moved into management but always kept my hands really involved because when food is your life, you're always involved. I've done the whole gamut - I spent maybe 15 years at a very large food plant doing all the behind-the-glass food for delis and supermarkets, then I was GM at airport catering for diplomats and kings and queens, which was fun but crazy. After that, I managed an assisted living dining room, then moved into child feeding for schools. Right now, I'm Director of Operations at Fulton Fish Market, where I've been for six years. I get in really early at 4 AM, and we're fabricating fish, freezing fish, labeling, and shipping door-to-door to customers who order on FultonFishMarket.com. My main focus has always been to make sure that I'm serving safe food to customers. There are so many different roads you can travel in the food industry and still be attached to what you love, and I've gone down all the paths to try them all out.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Helen
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think I'm very attentive and patient. I know I'm patient - patience is definitely high up there on what's helped me to move forward. I am a fast learner, and I'm not afraid to change with the times. From when I started to now, it's a world of difference, and being willing to adapt has been crucial to my success.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I ever received was from a baking professor who was critiquing some sort of report that I had done. He said, remember, you'll always get more bees with honey. And I never forgot that.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Always believe in yourself. That is so important. Keep your focus on where you want to go, and know that you can get there.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think that there are so many different roads you can travel in the food industry and still be attached to what you love and care to do. Like, you see, I've gone down all the paths to try them all out, because food is the food industry is what I love, and what I knew how to do, and learned how to do, and do it well. So, there's just so many different aspects in the same industry that you can go down and enjoy, work hard, and make money at.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
To treat everyone with respect. That is the most important thing to me - to treat all my employees with respect. To me, respect is a dying art, and I think that personally, corporations don't understand the value of respect anymore. Because when you respect people, they respect you back, and that goes so much further than anything else. Family life is also super, super important to me. I have a wonderful husband and three beautiful children, and a very tight-knit family. That's the most important to me, family life.
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