Stan Garnett
Oral History Transcript
Bio
Stan Garnett grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He served in the Peace Corps and worked for the Catholic Relief Service early in his career. He joined USDA's Food and Nutrition Service in 1971 and has worked in Child Nutrition Programs ever since. He is currently Director of Child Nutrition Programs.
Oral History Transcript
Interviewee: Stan Garnett
Interviewer: Meredith Johnston
Interview Date: July 21, 2005
MJ: We are here at USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service and we are with Stan Garnett. It is July 21, 2005. Thank you for spending time with us today.
SG: Well, you are entirely welcome.
MJ: Would you tell us a little about yourself and where you grew up?
SG: Okay. Well, I was born and raised in the Midwest in Kansas City, Missouri, and finished college there at the local Jesuit college and taught school for several years until I actually answered President Kennedy’s call for public service. So I joined the Peace Corps and I was assigned to the Philippines and I spent two years in the Philippines doing community development work and teaching English as a second language in several elementary schools. And when I completed my tour of duty with the Peace Corp, I had not had my fill of roaming and international type of work, so I joined the Catholic Relief Service and went to Vietnam and I spent two years in Vietnam basically doing refugee feeding during the war. And then I left Vietnam right before the Tet Offensive [1968], went back to the Midwest and got married to a young lady that had been a blind date when she was a senior in high school. We kept in touch all those years. We got married and actually left the day we got married for my next posting in East Africa. So we honeymooned a week or so in Europe and then went down and we were in Nairobi for a couple of years. It was a regional office there and we were covering Sub-Sahara Africa and we were basically working with PL Public Law 480 food commodities and distributing those food commodities to schools in some cases, institutions, leprosariums, and that sort of thing. We had a program similar to the WIC program in this country where we were providing milk and nutrition education and that kind of thing to pregnant and postpartum women. And then we did some school feeding, as I mentioned. And then during my tenure in East Africa, we were asked to go over to West Africa during the Biafran Conflict in Nigeria and again do refugee feeding. And I was, as the English would say, seconded to the International Red Cross to do that work. So we spent some time in Lagos, Nigeria. It was wartime so our travel was restricted but we enjoyed our tour there. And my wife was pregnant so we returned to East Africa for the delivery of our first child. Then we were posted to Ghana and spent the next couple of years again on the west coast of Africa in Ghana doing similar work that I had been doing in Kenya with some school feeding and then after having spent about eight years outside of the country and beginning a family, we decided it was time to look at going back to the states to raise a family. So I basically went through the catalog of federal programs and when I saw the Food and Nutrition Service, and they were administering nutrition programs, I decided to apply, and applied and I was offered a job in Washington and a job in Chicago and a job in Atlanta. And I had never lived in any of those cities, but they offered more money in Washington, so I came to Washington. And that was early ’71. And I joined the Food and Nutrition Service in 1971 and I actually was assigned to the Child Nutrition Programs and I have spent my whole career in the programs.
MJ: What is your earliest recollection of the program?
SG: Well, my earliest recollection, if I really go back to when I was in elementary school, I recall that we had subsidized milk in those days, which obviously was the Special Milk Program. But of course I didn’t realize, being young and in elementary school, didn’t realize it was a federal program and all that sort of thing, so. And then my earliest recollection of the Child Nutrition Program when I joined in early ’71, it was right after the passage of Public Law 91248 and the free and reduced price meal eligibility was being made uniform across the country and my first assignment was really working in implementing that legislation and standardized eligibility requirements and providing the guidance for our state cooperators for the program then. And then shortly or almost at the same time, the Breakfast Program was really in its, pretty much its infancy so we were working on the Breakfast Program. And shortly thereafter the Summer Food Service Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program were split from what was called, I think we called it the Special Feeding, Special Food Service Programs prior to them being separated and made separate programs, so working on implementation of those programs.
MJ: Well, would you like to elaborate any more on how you became involved or maybe how you got to this position?
SG: Okay, I can tell you a little bit more. I was assigned to the policy work in the programs and I thoroughly enjoyed the policy work and basically began writing regulations and policy and instructions for the programs. And then with the Summer Food Service Program we really were beginning a new program. So we not only wrote the implementing regulations, and in those days regulations were the preamble might be a couple of paragraphs and the regulations might be two or three pages and the clearance was very simple, whereas today the preamble might be six pages and the regulations might be three paragraphs and the clearance process has gotten extremely complex and lengthy and difficult. So we not only did that, but we actually from the federal office were assigned cities to go out and work with, with our regional counterparts. And the first summer that we started that program and I was out there for I guess three summers, I was assigned to St. Louis, Missouri, and we were working with a CAP agency in the city and starting in April-May went out to work with them to get sponsors for the programs, to get sites for the programs, to help them in getting food vendors, and really getting the program off the ground. We actually did that in seven cities across the country. And that was really the beginning of the Summer Food Service Program. We also were very busy at one point in time. The department was sued on the School Breakfast Program so we got into a breakfast outreach initiative in the mid to late, late ‘70s. And through that time I was promoted up the ranks and became a section head and then a branch chief in the programs. And then in 1985 I joined the deputy administrator for the Special Nutrition Programs so I moved into that office. And we covered all the Child Nutrition Programs including WIC, all the commodity programs. And then when there was a vacancy in the director of the Child Nutrition Programs, I was assigned as Director of the Child Nutrition Programs somewhere in the late ‘80s. I was in the position for several years until early in the Clinton administration, the Deputy, Assistant Undersecretary, I guess at that time, asked that I go over to the WIC Program. So I did spend about three years in the WIC Program as a Director of that program and then Undersecretary Shirley Watkins wanted me back in the Child Nutrition Programs, so she in about, let’s see, what year are we in now? So it was close to, soon will be ten years ago. So it was around ’96 I guess, ’97, she put me back in Child Nutrition as the Director of the program. I have been in that position now for almost ten years.
MJ: Was there someone, maybe a mentor, who was influential in directing you in this field?
SG: I would say there was no one individual, probably. I think what impressed me when I began my federal service in the Food and Nutrition Service was how many people were dedicated to the programs and interested in the programs and had been in the programs for some years. The agency itself was only established as a separate agency in 1969, but there had been people that have been around from the mid-60s and even before that. Very dedicated and hard-working and I found many, most of my peers in that same category and enjoyed the work, enjoyed working with the state cooperators who also were extremely dedicated to the program, working with the local cooperators to the extent that we work at the local level and also with the advocacy community and the associations like the School Nutrition Association which of course was the American School Food Services Association in those days. So we worked very closely with all of those groups to make the programs work and I just, many, many dedicated people. And there are many of us here in the agency that have been here 35 up to 40 years. So it inspired me to stay.
MJ: Would you tell us a little more about your educational background and maybe how that prepared you for your present job?
SG: Well, basically a liberal arts graduate, so I am not a nutritionist or anything like that. But I’ve found that the work that I do as Director of the program and coming up through the ranks always in the policy arena, although as Director we do other things, but the ability to write was something that was very, very important so I think that my liberal arts education and writing skills have served me extremely well. And I can still remember diagramming sentences in elementary school and you know we hated it in those days but I think it was well worthwhile.
MJ: What changes have you seen in the Child Nutrition Programs over the years?
SG: Well, I think, in one word, they have become very complex over the years, and for many reasons. But I have also seen that if you look at the School Nutrition Programs, when I joined 30, almost 35 years ago, schools cooked on-site. They baked bread. They did all those things. Whereas today you see much more convenience foods, prepared foods being served. You also see much more competition with the school meals that you did not see in the earlier years. Kids had more time to eat say back 35 years ago. We’ve seen scheduling changes in the schools where lunch periods now are much shorter; they begin earlier in the day. It is just a whole different attitude I think with the nutrition programs in the schools. There was much more local support for the programs, for example, picking up the costs of electricity, of water, of janitorial services and that sort of thing that today in many, many school districts they are charged for everything so it has put a lot of pressure on the School Food Service to be much more profit oriented, for want of a better word, than it was in the earlier days.
MJ: Well, this is sort of a follow-up to the changes question. But what do you think are the biggest challenges today, facing the programs?
SG: Well, I think probably the biggest challenge today is to, given the interest in and the concern about obesity, the biggest challenge today is to provide nutritious meals that children will consume and time to consume them in an atmosphere that is conducive to good eating. It is almost a need to go back to slow food versus the pre-prepared foods and things that so many schools now are compelled to provide kids. I think it is a huge challenge for the schools. There is a lot of competition. The economic pressures that schools are facing has caused them to, you know, fund-raise for everything it seems like today. Principals having school stores to support student activities that compete with the School Nutrition Programs. It really is a challenge for our schools to meet the needs of the kids to provide nutritious meals in a setting that is conducive to good eating.
MJ: What do you think has been your most significant contribution to Child Nutrition Programs?
SG: Well, I think probably the most significant contribution in a broad sense has been that since I have been around for a long time and been through many reauthorizations, have been able to work with the Hill staff as we have gone through the various reauthorizations and being able to influence the legislative changes that the programs have seen over the years, some, many of that in the area of expanding access to the programs, improving the programs. Also I feel that having the long tenure here I have built up working relationships with cooperators, our state cooperators. I attend almost all of the regional state meetings, meetings of state directors. Working with the advocacy community such as the Food Research Action Center, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, of course the School Nutrition Association, Second Harvest. Folks like that who all have been instrumental in maintaining the programs and growing the programs, and I think that broadly has been the ability to influence some of the things, some of the good things that we have seen in the programs.
MJ: Do any memorable stories or events come to mind when you think about your years of involvement?
SG: Oh, yes, I can think of a lot of good stories. My first years in the program we did, we did probably more traveling in the early days than we do now. And I can remember traveling to schools and we would start early, early in the morning, 7, 7:30, as School Breakfast, those schools that had School Breakfast in those days, and there as I said earlier all the schools cooked on- site and they always wanted to feed you. And they would make cinnamon rolls that were absolutely delicious. You could smell them as you walked into the building. But after you have gone to about three schools I would finally have to say, “no, no, no, I can’t eat any more.” And of course then they, you had to eat something, and then I would be very full by the end of the day. Or if I tried to turn down the food, I can remember in the South particularly, cornbread, and I’d have, I just couldn’t eat any more cornbread. And then they would accuse me of being a Yankee and not liking cornbread. And “No, that’s not right.” So that was, that was an interesting story. Starting the Summer Food Service Program as I mentioned earlier was very interesting work. And in some ways we were too successful. The Summer Program became a runaway program. And I can remember going to New York, I worked in New York City in probably ’77-’78 in the Summer Food Service Program. And seeing meals being given away to anybody and everybody, it was just very rampant abuse of the program. And the program had to be scaled back in the late ‘70s early ‘80s, and still had some restrictions on it from those early days, but I think just being able to, of being on the ground floor of a program such as the Summer Food Service Program was very, very memorable and fun. The Child and Adult Care Food Program, we worked very closely when family day care homes became eligible for the program. We knew that states couldn’t deal with a hundred thousand homes. I think we are up to about 170,000 homes now. We had to build an infrastructure for the program, so we, I can remember meeting with it was Bob Greenstein in those days when he was, we were all very young of course, and working in really creating a structure for sponsoring organizations for the Child and Adult Care Food Program. So that was very memorable. I remember the 25th anniversary of the School Lunch Program where we had a party at the patio of the Department’s administration building and a lot of the senators who were involved in passage of the School Lunch Act in 1946 were there. So I remember that very fondly. And then of course the 50th anniversary, we had another celebration of the program. Next year we will have the 60th. So those are all memorable experiences of getting some of these programs off the ground.
MJ: Could you tell us a little bit about what it's like going through budget cuts and the decisions you have to make in those times?
SG: Well, I remember, I guess it was probably, it was late in the Carter administration, the Office of Inspector General had done some reviews of school districts, mostly, my recollection is up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and found some abuses in the free and reduced price area of the program, and then there was at that time some thought that some modest changes needed to be made in the program so there were some cuts there about 1980. I can also tell you that in 1980 at the federal level administering the Child Nutrition Programs we had 119 people. Today we have 55 and the programs are more complex and more difficult. And then of course when the Reagan administration came in then there was, you know, some further cuts in the programs and determining from the legislative standpoint what cuts had to be made, and of course we all know that there were attempts to block grant the program and the School Nutrition Association among others was instrumental in getting a huge letter writing campaign to Capitol Hill in the sense that “school lunch” became a verb. You could be “school lunched” and I think the Hill will never forget that effort so we had that. In both of the last two reauthorizations, we had a directive from the administration at that time that they had to be budget neutral proposals so while there were a lot of things that we wanted to do with the programs to expand them, to improve them that cost money we had to find savings within the programs, and that’s a very difficult thing is “where do you take cuts?” So we had to in those two instances look at areas of the program where we felt you could take cuts without doing serious damage to the program. In the reauthorization in ’96-’97 we knew that states were not able to expend all their 2 percent audit money, so we proposed to take, to lower that to one-and-a-half percent. That gave us a savings that we were able to put into some expansion of the program and we got the After School Snack Program, which actually I think cost a little bit more than the savings that we had but we got into the process and that got the ball rolling. In the reauthorization that was completed in 2004, we were addressing the, what we called the over-certification issue, the fact that all the indicators that we had available pointed to the fact that more kids were being certified for free, particularly free meals, than were actually eligible based on the population survey data. Now that was certified, that didn’t say that they participated, but that they were certified. And I think that the general Child Nutrition community all felt we had a problem, but there was no agreement on the extent of the problem. But that any increase, say, or changes in the certification, verification process generated some savings. So there were modest changes made in 2004, increase in the verification requirements which resulted as I said in savings that were put back into the programs so that we were able to do several things. Increased access to the programs, eliminated some of the complexity in the programs and I think were, were very helpful. We saw for example an expansion of the fresh fruit and vegetable pilot became a program. And that’s been a very fun program to see get off its feet. We ran it through the pilot stage in four states: Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Michigan, and the Zuni Pueblo. And then we saw it expanded to now that we have 11 states participating in that program, 225 schools. So by getting that ball rolling, by getting some savings in the bill, Congress did find a little money to put into it this last time, so we got more than our savings would have allowed. So that’s kind of the process we go through.
MJ: What would be a typical day for you?
SG: A typical day. Oh, I would say, today, a typical day has changed through the years that I have been here. When I think back to when I joined back in ’71, everything of course was typed. We had a secretary, secretarial staff, that probably one secretary for every four or five people, and the best thing we had was correction ribbons on a typewriter. That has gone from you know successfully changed so today, and in those days you wrote out drafts in long hand, gave it to a secretary who typed it in draft, sent it back to you, and then typed it in final. They made mistakes they had to correct them manually and do all those sorts of things. Today, on a typical day would be first of all catching up on your e-mails, so first thing in the morning is getting as best you can caught up on your e-mails which come in from many, many sources. Then the next thing is most likely meeting with your immediate managers to see what is due that day. Lots of meetings, meetings on program issues. You know, take for example, my children today, who feel like you need to change jobs every few years, can’t understand how I could stay in the same job for all of these years. But I must say there has never been a dull moment in the job. We answer congressional inquiries. Hardly a day goes by that we don’t get some requests on the congressional front either for information or some request that we need to deal with. Right now, we are doing a lot of review of written documents such as regulations. We have a lot of regulations in process so that we, I have to read all those, so there is a lot of reading in the job. Through the reauthorization process, lots of meeting with Hill staff. Answering a lot of phone calls as well as e-mails. In fact, when my children were younger and they had you know “bring your child to work day,” and of course they had to go back and report to their teachers, they said their father talked on the phone and met all day, that’s all he did. [laughs]
MJ: Well, anything else that you would like to add?
SG: Well, let’s see. What else would I like to add? Well, I guess the only thing that I would say is that I thoroughly enjoyed my work in these programs. I know that one of these days I will be retiring, but as I say it has never been dull. I have enjoyed it. I’ve enjoyed working with all of the partners that make these programs successful, that cause them to enjoy bi-partisan support on the Hill. My co-workers here, I have a wonderful staff that means a lot to me, that is able to put out the work, and just the fact that our work gets out and see the kids, you know, consuming their meals, enjoying their food, makes it all worthwhile.
MJ: Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to do this.
SG: Alright.
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