A Day in the Life of Natalie Stine, Manager of Nutrition and Sustainability

Natalie Stine is the manager of Nutrition and Sustainability for Eastern Washington University’s Dining and Catering Services. She graduated in 2015, magna cum laude, with a bachelor’s degree in nutrition/dietetics and a minor in business administration and completed her dietetic internship with Adagio Health in Pittsburgh.

4:00 a.m.

Natalie begins her day about three hours before she has to leave for work. She likes to start the day with a workout and a solid breakfast and to enjoy a cup of coffee and relax before her busy day starts. She knows that every day working in food service is different, and it’s hard to get a minute for yourself. So, she makes sure to take care of herself in the morning, since she knows she’ll be wiped out from her day of work.

8:00 a.m.

She usually begins the day by checking and catching up on articles she receives from Food Management Magazine and Restaurant Hospitality News. She then looks ahead at the day to see what meetings she has in store. As the RD for Dining Services, she works with many different campus partners, so every day can be completely different. Natalie’s work is a service available to students who have purchased a meal plan, so she provides individualized nutrition counseling to EWU students and group nutrition presentations to various departments and athletic teams.

10:00 a.m.

Once a week Natalie attends the department managers’ meeting. This gives all the managers an opportunity to sit down and work through any issues they may be having in dining. A good majority of those meetings are discussing menus and staffing plans for the new Student Union Building that is being remodeled.

1:00 p.m.

Afternoons vary greatly for Natalie. One of her responsibilities as a certified master trainer with AllerTrain by Menutrinfo LLC is to train all of the dining services staff with AllerTrain. Through the different academic quarters, she hosts a variety of nutrition education events. These events range from a pumpkin carving with a composting how-to, to a Real Food Fair for National Food Day. Another project Natalie is currently undertaking is making nutrition information readily available to students for the food offerings in the new Student Union Building.

Natalie works with all of the managers in each dining location on a daily basis. She also works with different on-campus departments such as the Office of Sustainability, Office of Community Engagement, Student Activities, Food Insecurity Advisory Board, and the Athletic Department.

5:00 p.m.

Natalie ends her day on campus and utilizing the university supplied employee ID card/bus pass to make her 40-minute commute back home. This is a perk of the job that makes her commute a little more manageable and environmentally friendly!