Meet Our Team - Katie Cameron
Meet Katie Cameron, RDN LD MBA
Menu Support Specialist
Katie Cameron fondly remembers the days where she’d sit down with residents and pick their brains about what delicious foods and recipes they’d like to see more or less of on their facility’s dining menu. After all, these are men and women who really enjoy mealtime, and they never disappointed when it came to letting their feelings be known.
“Once they heard that I was a dietitian, they wanted to talk about the menu. And I’ve heard every complaint in the book,” Katie said with a laugh. “That’s the main thing that they look forward to. They want to see new things.”
“I love coming up with new recipes, but it’s also about striking a balance between what’s new and their comfort foods.”
A little more than a year ago, Katie became our menu support specialist. While that new post took her out of the facilities as a consulting dietician and kept her from hearing directly from residents, it hasn’t stopped her from indirectly making their meal wishes come true while working hand-in-hand with foodservice managers and teams.
As a menu support specialist, Katie is responsible for creating, updating, and implementing high-quality menus, menu components, and menu technology. This includes making menus, customizing them to meet certain dietary needs, working with vendors, creating recipes, and training foodservice staff. Her devotion to having a healthy mix of new and old choices is stronger than ever as she celebrates seven years with Health Technologies, Inc.
“Even though I’m not in the buildings anymore, I still feel like I’m making a difference for [the residents],” Katie said. “And I can gauge how well I’m doing because of the relationships I’m building with the dietary managers. They talk to the residents and get a lot of feedback about what’s working and what isn’t.”
Health Technologies was Katie’s first job coming out of her post-graduate internship with Aramark in Kansas City. She earned her dietetics degree from the University of Central Missouri and had come back to St. Louis when she was invited to a food show. That’s where she met Kim Fremont and Amy Bollam, and it didn’t take long to find her new home.
“I was very lucky. I was struggling [to find a job] in dietetics, and in this market, it’s hard to get in unless you know someone,” she said. “A friend invited me to that food show, and I ended up falling into the right company.”
A few things you may not know about Katie: She’s a former standout soccer player and even played a year of college ball before dedicating herself to academics full-time. She fell in love with dietetics because of her undying love of food. After her playing career was over, she realized that she couldn’t eat all the same yummy foods and expect to burn off the calories like she used to when she was running up and down a field all day. That didn’t stop her from eating a good meal, but she invested her time in learning about the nutritional aspect and how she could help other people.
She’s married to the love of her life, Taylor. Together, they have a cute-as-a-button baby girl named Emmie.
And she absolutely loves her job. “When you are doing consulting, you are by yourself a lot. But I would work with some of the dietitians who were training me, and I realized they had been with the company for 10, 15, and 20 years - I knew there was something about the company that was keeping people here. They are growing, and they treat employees well. I have friends who job hop around, but not me. I love this job and who I work for.”