Mary Angela Miller with the day’s menu display at OSUMC’s Seasons Café (Photo: Michael A. Foley ©2008/Rycus Assoc. Photography)

What ’s on Miller’s Plate ?

BEDS: 1,158 DAILY MEALS SERVED: 4,930 ANNUAL BUDGET: $13.7 million (food & nutrition only) STAFF: 201 worked FTEs

Mary Angela Miller never intended to apply for the directorship of Ohio State University Medical Center's nutrition services department. But fortunately for the institution, she was convinced to do so, despite a self-described lack of raw qualifications for the job back in 1990.

Smart move by OSUMC, which has enjoyed the benefit of having one of the onsite healthcare segment's top administrative talents heading its nutrition services operations for the past 18 years. And now it can also boast of having the 2008 IFMA Silver Plate Award winner in the Healthcare category in its organization.

Although Miller may not have had much direct foodservice-related management experience when she joined OSUMC, she did have exactly what the job required: managerial tenacity, strategic vision and a talent for taking calculated risks that has repeatedly led her to take her department into pioneering initiatives that have not only panned out operationally and fiscally, but earned OSUMC Nutrition Services a reputation for innovation.

Miller manages a multi-operational department under the Nutritional Services umbrella that includes patient and retail dining operations as well as a wellness center. With a combined budget in excess of $16 million, her department runs restaurants, cafés and mobile food units that service six hospitals on the sprawling OSUMC campus.

During her tenure, Miller grew clinical and retail sales from $2 million to $7.3 million in its latest fiscal year. Her technological and operational improvements not only increased volume and improved service but reduced labor needs by 90 FTEs, saving over a million dollars in total operating costs.

Miller is an Ohio native who grew up in Youngstown around “tremendously good food,” courtesy of her mother, who produced delicious meals both for her large family (Miller has nine siblings) and for a convent across the street, which helped put young Mary Angela through parochial school.

Nevertheless, Miller's interests were not so much in cooking as in science, and a nutrition class at Youngstown State University prompted a decision to major in dietetics.

Following her internship she joined the Cleveland Clinic as its first critical care dietitian, then migrated to Columbus to work for a private weight and wellness concern.

“I loved the small business opportunity but I wanted to get back into a large organization, and in Columbus that naturally pointed to Ohio State.”

At the time, OSUMC was starting a weight/wellness program much like the one Miller had overseen for three years, and needed a director. It seemed a perfect fit and great career move.