Dean's Advisory Board
Cary Wheeland
Retired Hospitality Executive, Senior Vice President at Bon Appétit Management Company
Cary served for 37 years as an Operations Executive at Bon Appétit Management Company.
Cary started his foodservice career in 1979 as a Student Manager at Western State College in Colorado for Saga Corporation, where he worked under then-Saga RVP Michael Bauccio — now Bon Appetit’s President. After graduating, Cary moved to California. He worked his way up the ranks at Saga and in July 1988, Cary joined his former boss at join Bon Appétit. In 1996, Cary was promoted to Regional Vice President and in 2011, Senior Vice President. Although titles changed, Cary’s role was all about taking great care of clients, and empowering people to do their best work. Cary is a former Advisory Board member of the California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, CA, and the Culinary Employers’ National Advisory Panel for the Art Institutes. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Western State College of Colorado.
Company Profile
Bon Appétit Management Company ( ), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Compass Group (), was founded in 1987, and is an on-site restaurant company offering full food-service management to corporations, universities, and specialty venues. Based in Redwood Shores, CA, Bon Appétit has more than 500 cafés in 30+ states, including at Google, Uber, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, the Huntington Library and Museum, and the Getty Center.
All Bon Appétit food is cooked from scratch, including sauces, stocks, and soups. A pioneer in environmentally sound sourcing policies, Bon Appétit has developed programs addressing local purchasing, overuse of antibiotics, sustainable seafood, the food–climate change connection, humanely raised meat and eggs, and farmworker rights. The company has received numerous awards for its work, including from the James Beard Foundation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Seafood Choices Alliance, and The Humane Society of the United States. The company was named Most Innovative Company in Food by Fast Company, and was awarded Business & Industry Innovator of the Year by Food Management. A number of Bon Appétit schools are perennially Princeton Review’s Best College Food list.