When Nick Saccaro ’01 was a student at Missouri Western, he completed an internship at Second Harvest Food Bank in St. Joseph, Missouri. That internship led him into a career in the food service field, and he never left. Today he is the president of Qwest Food Management Services in the Chicago area, a 650-employee company that provides food service to private and public schools.
From his first campus visit, the Hamilton, Missouri native said he knew the Missouri Western professors cared.
“I didn’t feel that way about other colleges I visited,” Saccaro says. “It’s hard for me to imagine that a student would find a more accessible campus community than Missouri Western.”
Also, he noted that his business professors always made time for students after class to talk about how the lessons from class applied to the business world.
“I was glad my business professors had real world experience, and hadn’t spent their whole lives in a classroom,” said Saccaro, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in Management.
Saccaro played golf for Missouri Western throughout his college career, and says some of his best memories were on the golf course. As president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, Saccaro valued the opportunities he had to work with people campuswide, especially Missouri Western’s president, Dr. James Scanlon.
The three-sport high school athlete said he still appreciates the opportunity he had to compete at the college level. “Not everyone gets to do that.”
After graduation, he worked for Citizen’s Bank and Trust in Chillicothe, Missouri. Then, just two years out of college, he was named executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank, where he served for three years. Saccaro took over the reins of Second Harvest’s sister organization in Colorado Springs, Colorado for two years before entering the profit sector of food service. He began his presidency at Qwest in June 2014.
Working for the nonprofit food banks, he says, taught him “how awesome the responsibility is to treat employees with dignity and respect, and to be a good family place to work.”
He saw a lot of families in St. Joseph and Colorado Springs who worked very hard at their jobs but still had to rely on the food banks to help feed their families.
“Now I have the opportunity to shape the culture of an organization so the employees feel that their work is a place that treats them with dignity and gives them a decent wage. No matter who the employee is, they should be treated with respect.”
Saccaro’s usually out of the house by 6 a.m. each morning so he can get in a workout before heading to the office, and a lot of time during the day is spent in the schools that Qwest serves, “making sure the relationship with clients is in a good spot.”
Back home around 6:30 or 7 p.m., he enjoys spending time with his wife, Kimberly, and young son, Quinn. “None of the stuff I did all day matters to him,” Saccaro says of his son. “I have to turn it off and be present for him.”
Prior to joining Qwest, he was vice president for Creative Dining Services, a job that found him on the road and away from home most evenings, so he really appreciates his current schedule.
In his free time, he still likes to golf, and there was a set of clubs under the Christmas tree last year for his son.
“Every time I go back to Missouri Western and every time I pick up the magazine, I am proud of what Missouri Western has become,” Saccaro said. “Every year it gets better and better.”