PCS is pleased to announce the appointment of Diane Fischer, who is well known in the school food service community in Minnesota, as Regional Sales Director, where she will also provide local account management to customers.

Diane is no stranger to PCS, as she used and supported our systems since 1989 at Bloomington Public Schools. More recently she served as President of the Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin PCS User Group.

We wish Diane well in her new position!

Chris Costa
Support Leader

Chris has been with PCS for over 7 years. During this time, he managed many district implementations. His knowledge in hardware and POS makes him a key player for the Support department. He has served as Team Leader for Support for three years and uses his talent to training new Support Technicians in the PCS products. Chris often serves as moderator for Year-End and Verification Webinars, recordings of which are provided as videos available on our support web site.

Terri Moreno
Accounting/Office Manager

If you’ve done business with PCS, you’ve no doubt met our accounting/office manager, Terri Moreno. Joining PCS in November 1995, Terri started as the general receptionist, moving on to support services and bookkeeping. In 1999 Terri became the PCS Office Manager with duties including all Accounting related services. Terri is the “go-to” person for anything involving purchase orders, invoices, and maintenance contracts.

Terri is the proud mother of two daughters, a son who is a police officer, and has four grandchildren. She loves to walk and exercise her sea legs on an occasional cruise.

“I enjoy working with the staff at PCS and the interaction with my clients who I have worked with on a daily basis for many years. I feel like I know many of you personally which helps to make my job a rewarding experience.”

Tony Diers
Director of Operations

Last month Tony reached his 20 year anniversary at PCS. Starting out as a Jr. Support Technician, Tony took on any project offered to him, including some very large district installations involving 100’s of schools. Known for his rapid wit and infectious sense of humor, he has always been able to find common ground with a wide range of customers and end users.

As Director of Operations, Tony is responsible for overseeing Front Office POS, Free and Reduced, and Accountability systems design and development, coordination with third party solutions providers, state office interfaces, enrollment, SIS, and financial system interfaces, quality assurance, and high level support services, especially with major city districts. Tony keeps his fingers on the pulse of our industry by participating in many of the User Group meetings throughout the US and meets with PCS users at several conferences throughout the year. His years of experience in the K-12 food and nutrition systems, moving from one technology to the next, are invaluable to the entire staff in managing the software life cycle.

Congratulations to Tony now and for many years to come, from all of us at PCS!

DJ Segraves
Regional Sales Director

DJ works the Alabama, Colorado and Utah territories and is still involved from time to time with our Florida Customers. Recently, DJ played an instrumental role in coordinating between the the Alabama State DOE and PCS Support to standardize district student information systems interfaces with RIGHTrak and RightNOW central office software.

This past month DJ added 5 new districts to the PCS family and has added to his own family! Congratulations DJ and Tara on the birth of their baby girl! Melody Lynn was born April 14, 2015 (8lbs 11oz and 21 inches).

When DJ isn’t working or building a larger family you can find him on the ski slopes. DJ travels to Colorado to do his snowboarding and you are likely to find him on TV in the spring helping out one of many contests that include, the Burton US Open, RedBull Double Pipe and even X Games.

Donna Martino Fuhrman, MS, RD
TrakNOW Project Manager

Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day was March 11, and in honor of this day and National Nutrition Month, we are featuring Donna Martino Fuhrman as Employee of the Month! As a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Donna applies her special knowledge and skills everyday as Project Manager for TrakNOW, our Nutrition and Inventory software, and as PCS’ liaison with USDA Food and Nutrition Service.

Donna has been with PCS for over 6 years and previously worked as a supervisor at Cherry Creek School District, a long time PCS customer. In 2009 Donna moved to New York City, and began her new career in software development. Donna received her Master’s Degree from Colorado State University in Human Nutrition.

Software development at PCS is partly a science involving creating the logic that embodies the complex business rules of school food and nutrition and partly the art of creating a user experience hiding this complexity behind simple and easy to use screens and reports.

This is the challenge that Donna is faced with as each year she receives an update from USDA Food and Nutrition Service with new requirements for the “approved” software. She must interpret these requirements within the TrakNOW framework in order to incorporate the new or modified regulations, compliance requirements, and “guidance”. Not an easy task!

Donna works closely with her counterparts at USDA to make sure that every function and report provides the results that are intended in the USDA requirements and specifications. Often this can be a matter of interpretation, and the process of updating approved software can require a lot of interaction with USDA. At the end of the day, Donna and her TrakNOW team of specialists, test the updated software for on-time release to customers each June or July.

When asked about the PCS approach, Donna said:
“We endeavor to make the software as user friendly as possible while at the same time providing options to match each customer’s needs. For example, we worked very hard designing our USDA approved food based compliance reports to look very similar to the USDA certification worksheets, so that our customers and state reviewers would feel very comfortable with it during the 6 Cent Certification and Administrative Reviews processes. Our new multi-browser platform which will support Internet Explorer 11, Chrome and Safari on an upgraded SQL 2014 server. Our annual Child Nutrition Database update will be released shortly after the multi-browser version. And we plan to have at least one more release this year, with more improvements and new features.”

Eric Garcia
Support Supervisor

Congratulations to Eric Garcia, PCS’s Support Tech of the Month on his promotion to Supervisor, for the Support Department. This marks the second time in a 12 month period Eric has received this accolade and it is well deserved. Knowledgeable in Hardware, Software and Networking, Eric has been a key player in several large accounts that require his expertise. No matter how large or small, it is Eric’s unwavering commitment and devotion to every customer that sets him apart. But don’t take our word for it, here is just one example of what our customers are saying about Eric!

“I was having communication problems using Student Universal Pin #, and was in the process of addressing the issue with PCS when our phone line went down. Two days later, the phone started working and the first person to call that morning was Tech Eric Garcia! He immediately fixed my issue and was so helpful!!!!! Thank you PCS for not dropping the ball on me!!!! Had your Company and Employees not been so dedicated, I would still be struggling to enter these student meals manually. If we were located nearby, I would invite the whole crew for lunch!!”
Jamie Bigford – Okeechobee County School District, FL

Judi Dugan, Senior TrakNOW Implementation Specialist

Judi has been providing excellent customer support for PCS TrakNOW customers for over 8 years!  As a Senior Implementation Specialist, Judi has brought many districts online with fully integrated Nutrition, Production, Inventory, and Ordering.  She specializes in setting up and supporting large districts with central and base kitchens and warehouses. Judi supported PCS POS and in-house web-based inventory technology at Minneapolis Public Schools central warehouse and central kitchen, before bringing her 25 years of hands on experience to PCS.

 “Judi Dugan is the greatest support person anyone in a school district could have. She goes above and beyond to help me when we are having issues within TrakNOW. I also consider her a dear friend and confidant.” – Kristen Garland – Worth County Schools, GA

“Judi Dugan has been a superb resource and tremendous help anytime she has been called on by Minneapolis. I would have never been able to complete the task of entering the inventory items as quickly as I did without Judi’s  help. She always gives you a thought out, well rounded solution to the problem at hand. Never does she make you feel as if your problems are too small or not as important as other peoples issues.” –  Joe Hollenback – Minneapolis Public Schools, MN