LET THERE BE FOOD

The Mealtime Messiah is jazzed.

After just over a year in office, the Messiah--Harvard Dining Services (HDS) Director Michael P. Berry--has a lot to be jazzed about.

January, traditionally a losing month for HDS, was profitable this year for the first time in half a dozen years.

Student response cards, "overwhelmingly negative" last year, are more than 90 percent positive of late.

And having witnessed the remarkable progress made since Berry assumed his post last spring, Harvard officials are considering turning the management of several other campus dining facilities, now run by independent contractors, over to HDS.

Ask what all this has meant to him and Berry--dubbed the Messiah by students grateful for his reforms--will answer, "It's been the best year of my life."

"I've never felt so accomplished as a manager," he says.

And he's jazzed. Berry likes to use the word jazzed when he gets excited. And sitting across the desk from him, it's not hard to see parallels between Berry and the freeform music of the 20th century.

For one thing, Berry never stops moving. His hands are always agitated--gesticulating to make a point, grabbing a can of Coke.

This is when he is in his office. And, judging from the time Berry spends sprinting between the dining halls and cafes that he oversees, Berry doesn't spend much time in his office.

Asked how he feels, Berry will answer "jazzed." Asked why that is, he answers, "I'm driven."

The Messiah as a Young Man

Berry's childhood sounds like that of any high achiever. His parents, a conservationist and an elementary school teacher, stressed excellence.

"I was taught the work ethic very, very early," he says. "All my life it seems like I've been working and enjoying it."

The speed that characterizes his life as a Harvard administrator, is also nothing new, Berry says.

In fourth grade, Berry received straight A's in all but one category: "works accurately with speed." In that area, he got a D.

Berry was distraught. Thinking that he would need to pick up the pace, he asked his teacher why he bombed.

"She told me I worked too fast," Berry says. "I still hate that teacher."

Berry also got started in food-service at a young age.

Despite the fact that "I can't cook worth a damn," Berry says that he always has surrounded himself with good food.

When he was 13, he took a job at a fourstar resort hotel, The Balsams, in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. He worked at the front desk to start.

But he received regular promotions and made assistant general manager by the time he was 20.

"All the bars reported to me and yet I wasn't old enough to be in them," Berry laughs.

Warren E. Pierson, a managing partner at the hotel, remembers Berry as a young man.

"He was extremely eager to learn," Pierson says. "Being at a young age, I would say that he was extremely mature, looking for responsibility, and willing to accept that."

When he left New Hampshire, Berry went to the University of Chicago. He majored in pre-law and spent time during his sophomore year at Oxford University.

But when his brother was killed in an auto accident in the late 1960s, Berry transferred to the University of New Hampshire to be closer to his family.

After college, Berry took a job as a sixth grade teacher, having decided against a career in law. But he says the experience didn't suit him.

"I loved teaching, but I didn't have a lot of patience," he recalls. "I'm driven at what I do. To be driven isn't necessarily good for sixth graders."

After giving up on teaching, Berry moved to Los Angeles, where he spent several years climbing the executive ladder at two fast food chains--the International House of Pancakes and Hamburger Hamlet--embarking on his collegiate food service career with a position at the University of California, Los Angeles.

There, Berry helped design and run an on-campus restaurant that attracted more than a million student customers within its first nine months.

"It became a hot spot," he says.

And when the summer Olympics came to Los Angeles in 1984, Berry took charge of feeding hundreds of thousands of spectators each day at several different sports arenas.

He calls that experience "an interesting study in logistics."

Later, at the University of California Irvine, Berry spent six years redesigning the entire food service program, opening seven new restaurants, "probably more than any food service in the country," he says.

Charles R. Piper, Irvine's associate vice-chancellor for student affairs and campus life, says students there thought Berry was "fantastic," and were sorry to lose him to Harvard in 1990.

"He is very energetic, a pleasure to be around," Piper says. "He has very high standards and is very concerned about students and their needs, and he wants to do the best possible job."

High Expectations

At Harvard, Berry's driven personality and high standards have earned him the acclaim of students, who laud the reforms--from sandwich bars to greater entree variety--he has brought to their dining halls.

But Berry is something less than a messiah to some of his employees. Since his arrival, there has been a barrage of complaints that his methods of increasing efficiency have placed unreasonable burdens on workers.

Using early retirement programs, Berry says he has started to trim the work force without cutting jobs, and scheduling changes are reducing overtime expenses.

Although the union is yet to follow through with talk of petitions and protests, the moves that mean efficiency to Berry are often less than welcome news to dining hall workers.

Berry admits encouraging his staff to work hard and says he expected some grumbling early on.

"I told the [food workers'] union, `Listen, the first six weeks are going to be harried,'" he says.

But citing low rates of productivity when he arrived, Berry argues that the union workers may need an extra push.

Berry also says that Harvard's payroll is the highest of any college food service in the country--paying $13 an hour for a "minimum wage industry."

Berry's strategies for smoothing relations with his staff include keeping them involved in decisions--like choosing the style of their new "more modern" uniforms. And he has established two new committees this year, one to field questions on health, safety and workload issues and another to reward employees for outstanding service.

Still, the enthusiasm for Berry among his staff is not likely to match that of the students body.

Hanging in his office is a picture of the class of 1991, a gift presented to Berry at Commencement last spring.

Saying that Berry contributed to the quality of senior life the way no one else could have, the class brought Berry before the crowd of 40,000 gathered in the Yard.

And even though he acknowledges a sometimes problematic relationship with the union, Berry says his priority list has students--"my customers"--at the top.

"We really do impact the quality of overall campus life, and we can impact it for better or for worse," he says. "We can be excellent if we want."

This year, Berry says, top-ranked chefs from area hotels and restaurants will visit Harvard dining halls to prepare special dinners and to instruct the HDS staff on novel cooking techniques.

In the future, Berry says, he will work on "redoing the freshman experience." Other changes may include increasing self-service in the dining halls--and moving employees out from behind the counter.

"We're not dealing with gluttons," he says, countering the argument that self-service could mean added waste and expense.

"We need...other niceties like having someone come to the table and ask whether you want more coffee or cookies."

"It's a whole different mindset from traditional institutional feeding," Berry adds.

Next year, HDS will open or take over the management of five restaurants on campus, including the Science Center's Greenhouse Cafe.

And The Greenhouse, already a common student stopover between classes, may add another twist to its service next year--delivering pizza to Harvard buildings and student dorms.

In addition, the mandatory 21 meals-per-week plan--a common target of student complaints--may also go in a few years. Berry has met with students to discuss the viability of a 14 meals-per-week plan, with additional meals served on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Getting Jazzed

For a man who works hard to increase the diversity of other people's food, Michael Berry himself likes to keep certain things part of a routine.

His constant motions towards the Coke can in his office, for example, are no fluke.

Berry always has a can of Coke. And he's not selfish. He offers a can to office visitors (at least four times to this reporter) and provides the beverage to staff members during meetings.

When announcing the surprising success of January to dining hall managers this week, Berry said, "Let's have a drink of Coca-Cola."

The double whammy of caffeine and sugar may be one reason that Berry never stops moving.

And the sum effect the of the driven nature of Berry's character, while a boon for Harvard eaters, is not without its drawbacks.

For the past few months, Berry has started each Monday morning by visiting a stress therapist.

"My poor employees would probably go crazy if I didn't," he says. "They always are saying, `Don't forget your appointment, Mr. Berry.'"

But the innovations at HDS have brought Harvard's Mealtime Messiah a great deal of satisfaction as well. And that's what makes it worth all the work.

"I get jazzed," he says.

And Berry says his job has only just begun.

"If it doesn't jazz me, it won't jazz you," he says. "We can't get complacent. There's a lot more to be done."