'A focus on value'

Vending was Mark Bruno's original area of expertise, having entered Brun-O-Matic, Inc., his family-owned vending business, straight out of college. Like Gladney's company, Brun-O-Matic made the inc. magazine list as one of the "500 fastest growing privately-held companies in the country," with annual sales growing from $90,000 in the 1970s to $4.5 million in 1983.

The following year, the business was sold to Howard Johnson, Co., and Bruno stayed on as a district manager. In 1985, when Howard Johnson was bought by Marriott, Bruno's responsibilities grew to regional manager and vice president.

"We learned to act quick on our feet since a lot of the regions I sold to changed. We were kind of this 'asset' Marriott didn't know what to do with since they didn't see us as part of their core business," he recalls.

Bruno was a key player in the management buyout of All Seasons Svcs. from Marriott in 1986, and became a shareholder, v.p. and director of the company. In January of 1995, he was named president.

A push for change: From 1986 through early 1994, the company grew via acquisitions from $17 million to about $83 million. But there were really three groups of investors who, by 1996, were pushing for change, he says.

"One group had been promised a 'liquidity event' five years out from 1986, and here we were 10 years out. A second group of senior managers wanted to 'retire' without the acquisition strategy risk, while another group of managers wanted to accelerate acquisition. The company looked at several strategies and decided on a management buyout," Bruno explains.

Having met Gladney two or three years before effecting the buyout—he was a financial inquirer to the company—Bruno believed Gladney's organizational strengths would instill new life into his fairly sound and stable but "tired" company.

"We had hung on to folks who could run a business at $20 million, but now we were closer to $80 million," he says.

Offering 'value': Today, All Seasons Services—with the emphasis on "service"—is pursuing its goal of increasing dining operations to represent 50% of the business.

"I don't think of one as more lucrative than the other. Both are necessary for a total f/s company. We're vending/dining/ office coffee plus B&I catering and we also focus on school lunch programs. But we're trying to limit our focus on areas where we can bring good value to the customer vs. being all things to all people."

By encouraging a Best Practices program (both operational and marketing practices), Bruno believes the best of what newly acquired companies have to offer can be quickly adapted and implemented companywide—all geared to meeting the needs of the clients.