Mark is an executive dedicated to food safety education and advocacy. His twenty-seven-year career includes sixteen years in restaurant operations, training, and food safety, most of those at the Director or VP level for Waffle House, Inc., seven years at the National Restaurant Association working on behalf of the entire industry and culminating as Director of Food Safety and QA Programming, and most recently, as a partner-advisor with Active Food Safety where his work with the Association of Food & Drug Officials has led to breakthrough discoveries in FSMS and food safety culture behavior in food establishments.
His work has included the design and implementation of food safety solutions, ensured regulatory compliance, and led to transformational culture change. Along the way Mark developed an almost single-minded belief that building relationships between industry and the regulatory authority is a critical and often overlooked element in successfully implementing and sustaining food safety management systems for the control of risk factors in food establishments.
Teaching, training, and coaching and the desire to impart knowledge and improve the performance of teams and individuals has always been his passion. He was an early advocate for developing food safety culture in food establishments before doing so became popular.
Mark has served on nineteen professional advisory boards or committees. He has published six articles, chapters in three books, and contributed to two guidance documents. He has earned ten awards for his work and is a frequently requested speaker on a wide variety of topics.
