Meet Ken Yant

Board Director

Ken Yant earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Ohio Dominican College and an MBA from Franklin University, both in Columbus, Ohio. Ken has been in foodservice all of his life, having worked in hotels, quick-serve restaurants, as well as in contract management in higher education, business & industry, and healthcare prior to moving into K-12 in 2001. In 2006, Ken relocated to Georgia to work for Gwinnett County Public Schools, currently the nation’s 11th-largest school district, as the Executive Director of School Nutrition. 

During this time, the school nutrition program has implemented an award-winning Farm to School program, with an emphasis on local foods; increased the level of field support Operations Specialists for all schools from four to ten; implemented both an incentive program and an employee recognition program.  Ken also established both a Manager’s Advisory Council and three Menu Councils (one for each level), which allows the school nutrition Managers to collaborate directly with program leadership to foster open communication, strengthen operational effectiveness, and ensure that frontline perspectives inform decision-making. Ken also established a collaborative partnership with another large Metro Atlanta school district to partner up on both distribution bids and fresh produce bids.  This allowed the districts to leverage their buying power and volume to drive costs down.

Ken is proud to lead a program that provides healthy, nutritious meals to 180,000 students across 135 sites on a daily basis.