By Josh Siatkowski | Lead Writer
Like any afternoon on campus, students accepted hundreds of chicken nuggets from Chick-fil-A employees. But on Monday, that employee was the chairman of Chick-fil-A himself.
When most Baylor students eat Chick-fil-A on campus, they’re served by staff in the Bill Daniel Student Center. For the lucky ones who attend the business school’s “Nugget Pop-Ups,” that server becomes Dean David Szymanski. But yesterday, Szymanski took it up a notch by inviting Chick-fil-A Chairman Dan Truett Cathy to campus, where the chicken restaurant’s lead man took on a job well below his qualifications: handing out nuggets to hungry business students with a smile and a “my pleasure” each time.
“He’s just immersed,” Szymanski said. “He loves talking to the students; students love talking to him. It’s about developing that connection.”
Cathy, the son of Chick-fil-A’s founder Samuel Truett Cathy, was invited to campus Monday to help strengthen the relationship between Baylor and the famous restaurant. He spent much of the day with Szymanski at the business school, visiting with classes like the Business Excellence Scholarship Team, handing out nuggets in the atrium and speaking at a Q&A session with about 150 student recipients of the Christian Business Leaders Scholarship afterward.
As the CEO of Chick-fil-A from 2013-2021, Cathy talked in the Q&A about his experience leading an openly Christian business and encouraged students to find not just a job but a calling.
For Cathy, that calling became apparent during one of his early jobs, cleaning and working in his father’s restaurants.
“I feel like I was made to pick up trash,” he said. “I was made to love being in dining rooms. I was made to do exactly what we were doing a few minutes ago,” Cathy said in reference to the hundreds of chicken nuggets he had just served.
Cathy also discussed Chick-fil-A operations, calling the business a “leadership development company disguised as a restaurant chain.” He said 70% of franchise operators grew up working at Chick-fil-A as early as age 16, and Chick-fil-A employees trained them, teaching not just the daily job but also life advice. Now, those operators manage $9 million businesses that earn them an average of $750,000 in net income a year.
“Think about what I just said, and we’ll be accepting applications,” Cathy said, to which the audience responded with laughter.
Cathy spent the other part of the day on another side of campus, discussing what doesn’t usually host billionaire businessmen: film and human flourishing.
In addition to his role at Chick-fil-A, Cathy is also the founder of Trilith, a community in Georgia home to 500 families and a 700-acre film production complex. According to Cathy, Trilith has been the production site of three of the 10 highest-grossing films, and it’s currently occupied by Dwayne Johnson and Tom Cruise, both of whom are filming movies there.
As a Christian, his reasoning for opening the studio relates to Paul the Apostle’s relocation to Rome.
“Paul, at the end of his life, said, ‘Well, I think I’m going to go hang out at the most important intersection I could find,’ and at that time in his life, it was Rome,” Cathy said.
“I’m in my last lap,” he continued. “I’m 73, and I’m sprinting to the finish line. And I’m making a bet that film, motion picture and entertainment is one of the most strategic intersections in society and culture today.”
In addition to state-of-the-art film facilities, Trilith also offers counseling and support services to workers in the stressful world of media, hoping they can flourish more in their lives.
“We don’t cross out all the four-letter words in the script, but we provide an ambiance where they would do their best work,” Cathy said.
For Szymanski, the day was a success for the business school, as students got to interact with the leader of a successful business that hasn’t compromised its values along the way.
“Chick-fil-A is out in front,” Szymanski said when highlighting the landscape of Christian-led businesses.
