Monday, June 17, 2019

Re: From janitor to VP



On Sun, Jun 16, 2019 at 8:14 AM The Hustle <news@thehustle.co> wrote:



The Hustle Issue #58
The Hustle, Sunday, June 16, 2019
Sunday, June 16, 2019

How a Frito-Lay janitor invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos

Richard Montañez went from cleaning toilets to being one of the most creative executives in the food industry.
On an early morning in the late 1980s, a group of the highest-powered executives at Frito-Lay — the CEO, CMO, and a platoon of VPs — gathered in a California conference room to hear what Richard Montañez had to say.
Montañez didn't share their pedigree. He wasn't an executive. He had no fancy degree. He had a 4th-grade-level education, and couldn't read or write.
Montañez was a janitor. But he was a janitor with an idea — an idea that would make the company billions of dollars and become one of history's most celebrated and iconic snack foods: Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
But first, he had to convince the world to hear him out.

Picking grapes

Montañez grew up in the 1960s in Guasti, California, a tiny unincorporated farming town 40 miles east of Los Angeles.
Under the sweltering Cucamonga Valley sun, his family — mother, father, grandfather, and 11 children — scraped together a meager living picking grapes, and slept together in a one-room cinderblock abode at the labor camp.
As a first-generation Mexican immigrant at an all-white school, Montañez had access to few resources and struggled to understand his teachers. "I remember my mom getting me ready for school and I was crying," he later told Lowrider magazine. "I couldn't speak English."
One day in class, the teacher went around the room asking each kid to name his or her dream job: Doctor… astronaut… veterinarian. When she called on Montañez, he froze.
"I realized I didn't have a dream," he says. "There was no dream where I came from."

The Cucamonga Valley region, in San Bernardino County, California, where Richard Montañez grew up (Image: Paul Hofer III)
Montañez soon stopped getting on the school bus and began boarding the work truck with his father and grandfather.
After dropping out of school, he worked the fields in 110°F heat, and took on odd jobs slaughtering chickens at a poultry factory, washing cars, and picking weeds. With a 4th-grade-level education and few economic opportunities, Montañez saw no path out of poverty.
Then, in 1976, a neighbor told him about a job opening that would change his life.

"There's no such thing as 'just a janitor'"

Down the road, in Rancho Cucamonga, the Frito-Lay plant was looking for a janitor.
At $4 per hour ($18 in 2019 dollars), the job paid many multiples of what Montañez made in the fields. It represented a better life — insurance, benefits, social mobility.
Unable to read or write, the 18-year-old recruited his wife to help fill out an application. He journeyed down a dusty road, met with the hiring manager, and got the job.
When he broke the news to his family, his grandfather imparted a piece of advice that would always stick with him: "Make sure that floor shines," the man told his grandson. "And let them know that a Montañez mopped it."
Montañez decided he was going to be the "best janitor Frito-Lay had ever seen" — and he quickly made his presence known.
"Every time someone walked into a room, it would smell fresh," he says. "I realized there's no such thing as 'just a janitor' when you believe you're going to be the best."

The Frito-Lay plant in Bakersfield, California (via CLUI)
Montañez also developed the philosophy that "it's not about who you know — it's about who knows you." 
In between shifts, he set out to make himself seen, learning as much as he could about the company's products, spending time in the warehouse, and watching the machines churn out crunchy snacks in the lonely midnight hours.
And eventually, his insatiable curiosity would pay off.

"I saw no products catering to Latinos"

By the mid-1980s, Frito-Lay had fallen on tough times. As a way to boost morale, then-CEO Roger Enrico recorded a video message and disseminated it to the company's 300k employees.
In the video, Enrico encouraged every worker at the company to "act like an owner." Most employees brushed it off as a management cliché; Montañez took it to heart.
"Here's my invitation… here's the CEO telling me, the janitor, that I can act like an owner," he later recalled. "I didn't know what I was going to do. Didn't need to. But I knew I was going to act like an owner."
After nearly a decade mopping floors, Montañez gathered the courage to ask one of the Frito-Lay salesmen if he could tag along and learn more about the process.
They went to a convenience store in a Latino neighborhood — and while the salesman restocked inventory, Montañez made a fortuitous observation: "I saw our products on the shelves and they were all plain: Lay's, Fritos, Ruffles," he recalls. "And right next to these chips happened to be a shelf of Mexican spices."
In that moment, he realized that Frito-Lay had "nothing spicy or hot."
A few weeks later, Montañez stopped at a local vendor to get some elote, a Mexican street corn doused in chili powder, salt, cotija, lime juice, and crema fresca. Cob in hand, a "revelation" struck: What if I put chili on a Cheeto?

Elote, the Mexican corn treat that inspired Flamin' Hot Cheetos (via Vallarta Supermarkets)
Introduced to the world in 1948, Cheetos — crunchy corn-based nuggets coated in cheese-flavored powder — were a flagship product of Frito-Lay. And while they were popular among California's growing base of Latino consumers, the company had yet to consider re-tailoring the product's taste profile.
"Nobody had given any thought to the Latino market," recalls Montañez. "But everywhere I looked, I saw it ready to explode."
So, Montañez heeded the CEO's words and "acted like an owner."
Working late one night at the production facility, he scooped up some Cheetos that hadn't yet been dusted in cheese. He took them home and, with the help of his wife, covered them in his own concoction of chili powder and other "secret" spices.
When he handed them out to family members and friends, the snacks were met with universal enthusiasm. He just needed a bigger audience...

So he called the CEO

"I was naive," Montañez later said. "I didn't know you weren't supposed to call the CEO... I didn't know the rules."
Finding Roger Enrico's phone number was easy enough: It was listed in a company directory. He rang the line, and was put through to the chief's executive assistant:
       "Mr. Enrico's office. Who is this?"
       "Richard Montañez."
       "What division are you with?"
       "I work at the Rancho Cucamonga plant."
       "Oh, you're the VP of operations?"
       "No, I work inside the plant."
       "You're the plant manager?"
       "I'm the janitor."
The assistant paused for what seemed like an eternity. "One moment."

Richard Montañez, via Twitter
Then, a voice on the other line: "Hello, this is Roger."
Montañez told the CEO he'd heeded the call to action. He'd studied the company's products, identified a demand in the market, and even crafted his own rudimentary snacks in his kitchen.
Enrico loved the ingenuity: He told the janitor he'd be at the plant in 2 weeks and asked him to prepare a presentation.
Moments after Montañez hung up the phone, the plant manager stormed up to him. "He said, 'Who do you think you are? Who let the janitor call the CEO?'" recalls Montañez. "Then he said, 'YOU'RE doing this presentation!'"

The birth of the Hot Cheeto

Montañez was 26 years old. In his words, he couldn't read or write very well and had no knowledge about how to formulate a business proposal.
But he wasn't about to give up.
Accompanied by his wife, he went to the library, found a book on marketing strategies, and copied the first 5 paragraphs word for word onto transparencies. At home, he filled 100 plastic baggies with his homemade treats, sealed them with a clothing iron, and manually drew a logo and design on each package.
On the day of the presentation, he bought a $3 tie — black with blue and red stripes — and had his neighbor knot it for him. As he gathered the bags, his wife stopped him near the door: "Don't forget who you are."

Hot Cheetos, in all their saturated glory (Frito-Lay)
Montañez stepped into the boardroom. "Here I was," he says, "a janitor presenting to some of the most highly qualified executives in America."
At one point during the presentation, an executive in the room interjected: "How much market share do you think you can get?"
"It hit me that I had no idea what he was talking about, or what I was doing," Montañez recalled. "I was shaking, and I damn near wanted to pass out…[but] I opened my arms and I said, 'This much market share!' I didn't even know how ridiculous that looked."
The room went silent as the CEO stood up and smiled. "Ladies and gentlemen, do you realize we have an opportunity to go after this much market share?" he said, stretching out his arms.
He turned to Montañez. "Put that mop away, you're coming with us."

Feeling hot, hot, hot

Six months later, with Montañez's help, Frito-Lay began testing Flamin' Hot Cheetos in small Latino markets in East Los Angeles.
If it performed well, the company would move forward with the product; if it didn't, they'd scratch it — and Montañez would likely return to janitorial duties. This was his one shot, and some folks didn't want things to work out for him.
"It seemed there was a group of [executives] who wanted it to fail," he later told the podcast, The Passionate Few. "They thought I got lucky. They were paid big bucks to come up with these ideas... they didn't want some janitor to do it."

Montañez signs a young fan's Hot Cheeto bag (@daliaabbas9, via Deskgram)
So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought every bag of Hot Cheetos he could find.
"I'd tell the owner, 'Man, these are great,'" he recalled. "Next week, I'd come back and there'd be a whole rack."
In 1992, Flamin' Hot Cheetos were greenlit for a national release. And in short order, the snack became one of the most successful product launches in Frito-Lay history.

From janitor to VP

Today, Flamin' Hot Cheetos are one of Frito-Lay's hottest-selling commodities — a multi-billion-dollar snack celebrated by everyone from Katy Perry to middle-schoolers on meal vouchers. There's even a rap song about them.
And Montañez is no longer sweeping floors: Over a 35-year career, the former janitor rose through the corporate ranks and is now the vice president of multicultural sales for PepsiCo America (the holding company of Frito-Lay). 
Before Montañez joined the executive team, Frito-Lay had only 3 Cheeto products; since then, the company has launched more than 20, each worth $300m+.
Recognized by Newsweek and Fortune as one of the most influential Hispanic leaders in America, Montañez is a gifted speaker who often tours the country giving keynotes. And soon, his story will hit the silver screen: Fox Searchlight Pictures is currently working on a biopic about his life, appropriately titled "Flamin' Hot."
He still lives in Rancho Cucamonga, where he gives back to his community through a nonprofit he launched, and teaches MBA classes at a nearby college.
Recently, a student asked him how he was teaching without a Ph.D.
"I do have a Ph.D.," he responded. "I've been poor, hungry and determined."
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Fwd: Scholar Athlete Award 2018-19

---- Forwarded message ---------
From: American Water Polo
Image
We are accepting nominations for the 2018-19 American Water Polo Scholar Athlete.  We are honoring any AWP athlete who qualifies under these set of criteria:
  • Student-athlete must have at least a 3.20 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale). If no GPA scale is used, then an 87/100 is required.
  • If your school uses a different grading system, please include an explanation in your submission.
  • Athletes must be a member of American Water Polo.
  • Athletes of all ages are eligible.
 Athlete must present his or her report card or transcripts in one of following ways:
The deadline for this award is June 30th, 2019
If you have any questions, contact Damon Newman at member@americanwaterpolo.org

Click here to unsubscribe.


American Water Polo


610 277 6787

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Fwd: Nurture, Invest, Lead: Dr. Hamlet Reflects on the 2018-2019 School Year



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Superintendent Hamlet
Date: Thu, Jun 13, 2019 at 6:15 PM
Subject: Nurture, Invest, Lead: Dr. Hamlet Reflects on the 2018-2019 School Year


As our students and staff begin summer break, I'd like to take this opportunity to update you on work accomplished by staff and teachers and share more efforts underway this summer to continually raise the bar on student outcomes.

For the start of the 2018-19 school year, we rolled out new curricula in Algebra and K-5 Mathematics, building off recent curriculum updates in English Language Arts. Our 60 academic coaches continued to help teachers adapt and learn new, proven techniques to improve achievement. We launched programs that reduced out of school suspensions significantly and invested in education technology to help us track student achievement in real time and guide students as they navigate the college admission process.

Already, students are responding. The percentage of students scoring proficient and advanced on the 2018 PSSA increased on all three exams. Performance of our African American students also increased on all three PSSA exams. Graduation rates improved for all students by 10.4 percent to 80.8 percent in 2017. Additionally, students of both genders and African American students saw increases.  In fact, the graduation rate for African American students in PPS surpassed the state by 3.7 percent.

We're not going to turn around achievement overnight, but these gains provide evidence that our strategic plan is guiding us in the right direction. 

Nurture
Implementation of our strategic plan focused on the most vulnerable students.

We had to go back to basics and make sure our students are nurtured, so they are ready to learn. When I became superintendent, I learned that schools in many disadvantaged neighborhoods didn't have nurses or librarians. Graduation rates needed improvement, especially among our African American males and the out of school suspension rate was one of the highest in the state. ESL students, one of our District's fastest growing populations, were underserved. We increased translation supports and moved students out of sheltered ESL classrooms and into spaces where they can find a balance of support and challenge.

Now, in addition to eight community schools, all campuses have access to nurses and at least half-day librarians. This school year, we completed the implementation of Positive Behavior and Intervention Support (PBIS) and Restorative Practices to all 54 school buildings. Instead of the first line of defense being suspension, students now have trained staff focused on coping skills and conflict resolution. 

The state didn't think we could roll PBIS out to all schools this quickly, but having successfully done so with colleges in my former district, I was confident in our ability to accomplish this goal. More importantly, we couldn't wait because for every year we waited, we risk another student leaving school and potentially winding up perpetuating the poverty cycle or worse. School-age children belong in school, focused on learning not on the streets, where they must focus on survival. As a result, the number of days students have missed school due to suspension has declined by more than 1,500 days. 

Invest
This school year, in addition to investing in new curricula, we also invested in educational technology. We know that technology has the potential to become the great equalizer in bridging the achievement gap among students from underserved populations. In a world where students will be expected to use technology to find unfamiliar locations, look up information, or work with other people, we must prepare them accordingly.

Through the use of technology, we are able to engage students in their learning, provide much-needed intervention and enrichment, assess academic progress, and provide teachers valuable data to identify areas of need while cultivating innovative ways to improve teaching and learning. 

One of these investments, called Naviance, offers college and career planning for middle and high school students. The software helps guidance counselors walk students through the process of identifying their strengths and interests and exploring careers and colleges to create personalized plans for life beyond high school. Our District now joins a growing number of large public-school systems across the country, including some of the largest urban districts which have embraced this platform as a proven career readiness tool.

Lead
Our quest to improve student achievement was laid with a strong foundation. You may remember that in 2016, I ordered the most in-depth third-party analysis of the Pittsburgh Public Schools system. I was hearing from stakeholders like you, including foundation leaders and parents, that the District was stuck. And the numbers reinforced what I was hearing. So, we had to do a deep dive. This analysis included 137 recommendations. It's overwhelming. But we took this analysis, and we met with thousands of parents, staff, and community members to form our strategic plan, Expect Great Things. So far, 72 of the recommendations have been fully implemented.

I'd like you to know that my staff and I are committed to working tirelessly toward completing more recommendations. Here are some efforts on our summer agenda:

  • The rollout of On Track to Equity, a robust plan that details intentional efforts underway to eliminate racial disparity in achievement levels of African American students. Equity is one of four strategic themes in our strategic plan. The plan meets a requirement of our MOU with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to deliver, in writing to the Equity Advisory Panel (EAP), an implementation plan that details, "the action steps which the District will take in order to accomplish the terms of the MOU." We view the completion of the plan as an opportunity to move beyond compliance to demonstrate for all stakeholders our commitment to reaching our desired outcomes for students.  We continue to finalize the plan with the EAP and expect to release a final plan to the public this summer. 
  • Implementation of Let's Talk! This interactive platform will streamline our Parent Hotline, Call Center calls and emails as well as all PPS social media chatter into one cohesive Dashboard. K12 Insight will provide onsite training of the 'Let's Talk!' platform and professional development on best practices in customer service. The platform will automatically assign ownership of all cases and issue alerts to the assigned staff, as well as alerting leadership with any significant concerns that may be arising. By housing all stakeholder communications in one centralized dashboard this will allow the District to enhance our customer service and to engage our community as a whole.
  • The 2nd Annual Summer Leadership Academy's theme is Removing Barriers to Advance Teaching and Learning. The goal of the Summer Leadership Academy is to utilize district talent as an intentional capacity building strategy to strengthen systemic implementation of research-based pedagogical practices all aimed at advancing teaching, learning, and student outcomes. The Leadership Academy will provide School Leadership teams with the opportunity to participate in an intense professional growth experience. 

While we're moving full steam ahead, we must recognize that we can't always rush progress. Consistent nurturing, investment and leadership are the key ingredients that will get our students where we know they can be, reaching their highest and greatest potential.


Dr. Anthony D. Hamlet
Superintendent of Schools
Pittsburgh Public Schools
412-529-3600 (W)  |   412-622-3604 (F)  |superintendenthamlet@pghschools.org

Friday, June 07, 2019

Fwd: Carol Scholarship Application 2020

---- Forwarded message ---------
From: American Water Polo <service@findjoo.com>

Image

Ron Gonen, a former athlete from the University of Massachusetts and Young Athletes of America Water Polo Club, has established a $5,000 scholarship available to water polo athletes aged 14-19 who exhibit leadership or the potential for leadership based on the values of teamwork, sportsmanship and community.

Named in honor of his mother, the purpose of the scholarship is to provide an athlete with limited financial means the opportunity for high level training and instruction. Funds can be used for academic endeavors such as private high school tutition with a water polo team.

Attached is the formal application process. The deadline for the application is July 1st, 2019

Please send all application material to office@americanwaterpolo.org

Contact us with any questions.

Click here to unsubscribe.



American Water Polo

610 277 6787


Fwd: Best Bug Spray Ever

Great tick and mosquito repellent.  Non toxic and THE most effective stuff ever used.  

The Picaridin is for your skin and if used properly, you will NOT get a single bite.  The Permethrin is for treating clothing and gear and last up to 6 weeks with washing.  




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Ta.


Mark Rauterkus       Mark.Rauterkus@gmail.com
Swimming and Water Polo Coach, Schenley High School, Pittsburgh, PA
http://CLOH.wikia.com
412 298 3432 = cell

Tuesday, June 04, 2019

Fwd: IUP Summer Camps

-- Forwarded message ----
From: Christopher Villa


Greetings!

Sign up for camps at IUP!  Space is limited!


Call with any questions or concerns,
GO HAWKS!
-Chris Villa