2025-26 SNA President Stephanie Dillard didn’t plan on a career in school nutrition—but every unexpected turn opened a new door to leadership, and now she is ready to help others grow, get involved and realize their own potential.

With all the time school nutrition teams spend in the kitchen, you probably know better than anyone that great things happen by circumstance. You’ve got all the ingredients on hand, but it’s not until you figure out what to do with them that you create the dish that ends up being a surprise hit on the menu.

You might even say that’s how Stephanie Dillard, Child Nutrition Director for Enterprise City Schools in Alabama and recently named SNA President, came to be part of school foodservice. She had the skills, the heart and the work ethic. And as a small-town girl growing up in the tight community of Samson, Alabama, she watched her father work as a salesman for U.S. Foodservice and her grandfather run a grocery store—though she never expected she’d follow a career path like that...