Finishing Up His Plate: VP of Food Darrin McCready Set to Retire After 31 Years—and Four Continents

After he graduated from the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 1991, Darrin McCready sent an info letter and résumé to the Exchange. But then he took a closer look at the job description and got cold feet.

“When I saw all the things it entailed and the international travel, I got a little skittish and didn’t follow through after applying,” he said.

McCready had already been working in the civilian world for several years, starting in 1985 at Burger King, where he had moved into a management position by his senior year in college. After graduation, he spent some time in the management program at Piccadilly Cafeterias, a Baton Rouge-based company and then went to work for Foot Locker in its management program. But he didn’t see a future there.

In early ’92, he gave the Exchange another shot. He got as far as an interview, but then the Exchange had a hiring freeze. He went to work in the management program at Kmart. While he was there at a Euless, Texas, location, he got a call from an Exchange recruiting manager telling him that the hiring freeze had been lifted and asking him if he’d like to join the organization.

He did. That time, it stuck. McCready joined the Exchange in October 1992. He calls it the best career decision he ever made.

Now the vice president of food, theaters and commercial leasing, he will retire July 28 after a 31-year career in which he has worked on four continents—not bad for someone who initially balked at the travel requirements.

“I got over that real fast,” McCready said with a chuckle, “once I jumped in.”

A Whopper of a beginning

McCready began his Exchange career in a familiar place: Burger King. The international travel took a couple of years to happen—but the domestic travel happened quickly. After orientation at Dallas headquarters, he was sent to Fort Dix in New Jersey for training, and then to Fort Benning (now Fort Moore) in Georgia for certification.

“Back then, you didn’t go straight to an assignment,” he said. “We had the MRF—Management Reserve Force. We called it ‘Murph.’ They’d send you to a location, and you’d be there a number of months. They sent me to MRF at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and I stayed there for probably six months, and then they sent me to Fort Campbell in Kentucky.”

In August 1993, he received his first assistant assignment at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. A little more than a year later, in October 1994, he was assigned to a Burger King at Bad Kreuznach in Germany.

“It was the first time I’d ever traveled outside the United States,” he said. “By that time, I was becoming an experienced traveler. I didn’t know it yet, but I was.”

After about 2½ years, he returned to the States to become restaurant general manager of the Burger King at Fort Rucker (now Fort Novosel). Nearly three years later, he was back in Germany, managing his first food court in Baumholder. Then the opportunity came to deploy to the Balkans and he took it.

“I went to the Balkans in July 2000, and to this day, it’s still the most rewarding assignment I’ve ever had,” McCready said “That’s where I really noticed the impact of what we do and the difference it makes when you’re providing a taste of home. You get the smiles and the ‘thank yous’ and it’s immediate. They’re thanking you, but they’re the ones that are putting their lives on the lines to keep the peace and defend our freedoms.”

During McCready’s time in Bosnia, Arnold Schwarzenegger came to Eagle Base for a screening of his 2002 movie “Collateral Damage.” By this time, McCready was the Exchange business manager and was overseeing food, theaters and more in the region.

“We went out and found red carpet to do a Hollywood-style premiere,” he said. “Team members wore tuxedos to the opening. It was a big deal.”

Bringing tastes of home to the tip of the spear

Later in 2002, McCready returned to Germany, where he was food business manager at the Wiesbaden Consolidated Exchange. A couple of years later, his world expanded again as he took on the newly created role of region food program specialist for Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was based in Germany, but he did a lot of traveling.

“I did these extended TDYs to Iraq and Afghanistan to help open new concepts and improve quality-of-life,” he said. “I got to experience the gratitude in a different environment. Bosnia was more peacekeeping. There were still some dangers, but everything was pretty stable by that time. There were more real dangers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the scale of what we were doing was much bigger.”

McCready oversaw the openings of Burger Kings, Pizza Huts and Subways at Camps Speicher and Balad in Iraq. Then he led teams opening restaurants in Afghanistan and bordering countries. “We had the first Burger King at Bagram Air Base, the first Burger King in Kandahar, and the first Subway in Kyrgyzstan,” he said.

In October 2005, McCready returned to Exchange headquarters in Dallas, where he worked as industrial activity program manager, then area food manager and then region food program specialist. In the first role, he supervised operations at bakery and water plants. He had some doubts about getting away from restaurants, but when he returned to food management, he realized he’d learned valuable lessons from working with the plants.

Although he was based in Dallas, his food program roles had him on the road through much of Texas, the Southwest and Western US. All these roles prepared him for his next step: becoming chief of restaurants and entertainment for the Pacific Region.  He credits Karen Stack, SVP of Western Region at the time, for mentoring and pushing him outside of his comfort zones.  “I wouldn’t have been successful in my future roles without her coaching” McCready said.

An ocean’s worth of opportunities

“I had the whole region,” McCready said of the Pacific. “I still reported to the senior vice president and the vice president, but I was chief of food for the region. And that job really enabled me to grow a lot. [Senior Vice President] Karin Duncan was my mentor. She supported me and let me have autonomy to get some initiatives done.”

The job covered a lot of territory: Along with operations in Japan, South Korea and Hawaii, the Exchange has restaurants in even more remote locations such as Kwajalein Atoll, nearly 2,500 miles southwest of Honolulu.

He happened to be in Kwajalein in 2011, preparing to board a flight when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Honshu, Japan’s largest island, and a tsunami followed. The quake affected three Exchanges in Japan, which faced challenges from power failures and road closures.

“Kwajalein is low-lying,” McCready said. “There really is no elevated place to go. We were under tsunami warnings and didn’t know whether the flight was going to take off. It was nothing like what the people experienced in Japan, but I’ll always remember where I was when it happened.”

Back in the USA

In 2013, McCready returned to Dallas, where he has directed food programs for nearly 10 years. He also oversees theaters and commercial leasing.

During his 31 years, the Exchange has put an increased emphasis on name-brand restaurants. But McCready says the biggest changes he’s seen have been in technology.

“It’s DoorDash, branded point-of-sale, ordering via apps, self-order kiosks and things of that nature,” he said. “In theater, it was the change from 35mm to digital. You went from carrying around canisters of prints that probably had six to eight reels in them to now you ingest the film into a hard drive on a projector and show it. Technology has really changed the industry and it’s going to continue to shape it. We have to continue to strive to be at the forefront and be competitive to maintain our relevance.”

Under the strictest definition, McCready is an Army brat: His father retired from the Army—the year McCready was born. But he did grow up going to military installations.

“I knew what the PX and the BX were, but until I really looked into the Exchange, I didn’t understand the scope and scale of everything we do, with the different lines of businesses that we have. Who else can say that they operate retail stores, convenience stores, restaurants, personal services, movie theaters, bakeries, water plants, airline catering and more? You look at some of the things we do sometimes and it’s really amazing.”

His retirement plans are simple: Some rest and relaxation, a little travel, spending more time with his grandkids and having a stress-free holiday season. But the Exchange will remain a part of him.

“You become family with the people who work here,” he said. “When you’re overseas, when you’re deployed, when you’re away from your family for the holidays, you spend the holidays with your Exchange family. You have Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner with them. And we’re part of the military family. We’re serving the best customers in the world.”