It seems like you’ve done a little bit of everything, so how did you get involved with the Iowa Restaurant Association?

I’m very eclectic. Once I got back into marketing, I started doing association work — in the food industry in particular, so I did a lot of work for the Iowa Grocery Industry Association, for Orchestrate Management (& Associates).

And I wrote and edited the Iowa Restaurant Association’s magazine. I got originally affiliated with them that way.

The nice thing is that I walked into the job with a pretty decent understanding about the issues facing Iowa restaurants, and I had a lot of ideas that I could hit the ground running with.

What are some of the difficulties you’ve faced with this new job?

Like every kind of business, the economy has been really rough on the restaurant industry.

Being a member of an association is a choice and not a requirement, and so the No. 1 thing that I’ve had to look at and evaluate is providing value to our members that they can see and feel every single day.

And when you look at what our association does, there’s two pieces to it: There’s promoting the industry and protecting the industry.

And in the past, it has been excellent at protecting the industry, so my biggest challenge since I walked in is really ramping up the promotion piece.

What have you done to help promote it?

Just [last] week, we launched a new product called Dine Iowa. It’s an online restaurant locator, (an Android app and iPhone app. It’s free to consumers and free to members.

You can conduct searches through amenities, like gluten-free, patio, carryout, and through area … it can help you chart your way across the state.

We’re trying to get butts in the seats at restaurants —that is the biggest challenge my restaurant members are facing, and so that’s the biggest challenge I’m facing.

In the past, that really hasn’t been the role of associations to do those things —to be a marketing arm — but the world is changing, and so that’s actually why I think the search committee hired me.

I came in with some background in marketing and looked at what we can do to drive business to Iowa restaurants. You know, [technology] is the way the world is going, so this is the way that we have to go, too.

You’ve touched a little bit on it already, but what exactly does the Iowa Restaurant Association do?

It really does protect and promote the industry.

It isn’t my job to be a food critic; it is my job to help find ways for restaurants to make money. And there’s a lot of ways to do that.

One is to help them train their employees. We are so involved with food safety training; that is the most important way you can protect your business.

When it comes to legislative work, we are a pro-business lobbying organization. And so again, we are always looking at how do things affect the restaurant industry? We also do some collective negotiation to help smaller places, like for discounted health care, discounted music licenses, etc.

Working in the restaurant industry, you’re around food all the time; what would you consider your favorite?

Anyone who knows me would tell you that it is a very, very large caffé mocha. If I had to pick the thing that I would have to say I couldn’t live without, it would be a caffé mocha.