Five Star’s CEO, Richard Kennedy, Elected To 2022-2023 NAMA Board Of Directors

The National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA) has recently announced that they will be electing a new chair for their board of directors. That position falls on Marc Whitener who is the CEO of Refreshment Solutions LLC. Whitener has long been involved with NAMA leadership and is going to be focusing his serving time as chair on increasing industry advocacy. Whitener stated, “My goal is to help NAMA members grow their businesses and continue to advocate for our industry.”

In addition to Whitener, the 2022-2023 board officers are:

• Chair-Elect Lance Whorton, President, Imperial
• Vice Chair Patrick Hatcher, President and COO, Vistar
• Secretary/Treasurer Rick Brindle, Vice President Industry Development, Mondelēz International, Inc.
• Past Chair Joe Hessling, CEO, 365 Retail Markets

An exciting announcement came along with the election of the board chair. Five Star Food Service’s CEO, Richard Kennedy, was elected to his first term as a Board Director. Richard came to Five Star in 2018 to become Chief Operations Officer and has served as President & Chief Executive Officer since 2020. His background includes over 20 years in corporate strategy and operations consulting which links him to Five Star. Richard played a role in the company’s success over the last decade via consultancy by helping the company restructure and become Canteen’s largest franchise. We congratulate Richard Kennedy and hope that Whitener and all of the board can continue to advocate for the industry.

In addition to Kennedy, the elected first term directors for 2022-2023 are:

• Sean Feeney, CEO, Cantaloupe, Inc.
• John Hickey, Co-Founder, Tech 2 Success LLC
• Husein Kitabwalla, CEO of Food Transformation, Sodexo
• Patrick Liebler, President of Refreshment Services, Aramark
• Linda Saldana, CEO, Seventh Wave Refreshments