Four finalists have been named in the search for a new director of dining at Iowa State.

The four candidates are Mohamed Ali, John Gaughan, Gayle Hanson and Amanda Steiner.

Martino Harmon, associate vice president for Student Affairs and chairman of the search committee for the position, said the candidates were chosen from the committee that comprised eight individuals on campus, including two students.

These candidates will visit campus individually for their interviews beginning next week. There will also be one-hour public forums with each of the finalists that students, as well as faculty and staff, are welcome to attend.

All open forums will take place at 11 a.m. in the Memorial Union on their respective days; next Thursday, Friday, Nov. 19 and 20.

The first open forum will take place Thursday for Steiner in the Gold Room.

Hanson will be the subject of the next open forum on campus, which will take place next Friday in the Cardinal Room.

The next open forum will take place Nov. 19 for Ali in the Gold Room of the Memorial Union. 

The final open forum will take place Nov. 20 in the Gold Room for Gaughan.

Harmon said it’s very important for students to participate at each of the open forums. 

“We want to make sure each candidate walks away from the campus interview aware of the needs and expectations of the students, whether it’s in the dorms or off-campus,” Harmon said.

According to the office of student affairs website, Steiner is the resident district manager for Sodexo Campus Services at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro, N.C. She has more than 11 years of experience in campus dining.  

Hanson is currently serving at Aramark as the senior food service director in Peoria, Ill. Aramark, according to the Office of Student Affairs, oversaw services for Bradley University, Ill., Hamline University, Minn., Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania and Muskingum College, Ohio.

At this time, according to the Office of Student Affairs, Ali is the auxiliaries operations director at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, which has 17 retail dining locations and four regional dining facilities. According to the Student Affairs Office, he has 24 years of food industry management experience.

Gaughan currently works at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania as the general manager and director of operations for Chartwells Dining Services. These dining services include large restaurants, retail operations, kiosks, coffee houses, faculty dining services and catering.

“We definitely want someone who can provide strong leadership,” Harmon said. 

The final candidate must also have good management skills, as well as be able to be collaborative between other units on campus, Harmon said. The new director also needs to have strong financial management skill, he said.

“The most important is that they can really represent dining with our students and understand what students want out of dining,” Harmon said. “They need to be responsive to student needs.”

Harmon said between 20 and 23 candidates were initially chosen by The Spelman and Johnson Group. The consulting group based out of Massachusetts often helps the university in filling open director positions, Harmon said. 

It was narrowed down even further to 8 candidates, which were handed over to the university search committee. Harmon said the committee then narrowed it down to the four finalists.

One finalist will succeed Nancy Keller as the director of dining, who stepped down from the position in January. She had been director since 2006.

All of the candidates’ résumés and cover letters are available at the Office of Student Affairs website. here.