Team Directory · Internal

The 100 People of GFS

Who does what. Who to call. Who has been here longest.

100 employees 8 leaders 4.2 yr avg tenure 68% internal hires since 2003

Philosophy

We hire forever.

Heartland runs on people who stay. The receivers, pickers, drivers, buyers, and accountants on this list are the ones who pick up the phone at 6:00 AM and stay until the last reefer is armed. Most started on the floor. Most are still here.

Hiring is slow on purpose. We meet you, we walk you through the dock, we feed you pancakes, we ask hard questions. If the work matches the person, the offer goes out. After that, the door does not really close.

Leadership Team

Eight people. The names you call when it matters.

CEO

Michael Levine

Founder. Sets the direction, walks the dock every Friday, signs the bids.

Since 2003

CFO

Lorraine Peterson

Owns the numbers. Cash flow, banking, AR posture, financial planning.

Front office

Senior Accounting

Amanda Swerdlow

AR and AP. Invoices out, bills in, dunning calls, vendor payments.

Reports to CFO

VP Logistics

Ian Lindsay

Dock, trucks, drivers, routes. Outbound waves and inbound receiving.

131 Heartland

Director, Food Safety

Sydney Langhorn

SQF, HACCP, cold chain, lot integrity. The yes or no on a hold.

QA lab

VP Operations

Richard Gallo

Production lines, assembly, facilities. Keeps the building running.

Floor

VP Compliance / USDA

Elena Misoulis

USDA conversion lanes, bid submissions, regulatory filings.

Front office

Customer Service Lead

Danielle Scibelli

Account questions, order issues, the voice on the inbound line.

Front office

■ Leadership is small on purpose. Eight people, every name known on the dock floor.

Org Chart

Four direct reports. Flat by design.

CEO Line

CEOMichael Levine

DirectLorraine Peterson

DirectIan Lindsay

DirectRichard Gallo

DirectSydney Langhorn

Finance Line

CFOLorraine Peterson

DirectAmanda Swerdlow

ARCollections + invoicing

APVendor payments

BankCash and lockbox

Logistics Line

VPIan Lindsay

DirectDock leads (3)

DirectDispatchers (2)

Drivers14 W-2 + contract

ReceivingDoor 1 through 14

CEO · Levine

CFO · Peterson

VP Logistics · Lindsay

VP Ops · Gallo

Food Safety · Langhorn

■ One CEO, four VPs, the rest of the company. Two layers between the founder and the dock.

Roles by Function

Five pillars. Every seat fits one.

ORDER MANAGEMENT

Inventory, logistics, USDA drawdown. The seats that move a pallet.

FOOD SAFETY & QA

SQF, HACCP, lot integrity, cold chain audits, hold and release.

SALES & BID

Customer relationships, bid intake, quote generation, contract terms.

FINANCE

AR, AP, banking, financial planning, vendor setup, cash posture.

OPERATIONS

Production lines, assembly, facilities, IT, maintenance, building.

■ Every role on the org chart maps to one of these five. If a seat does not fit, the seat is the problem.

Who to Call

Six situations. One name each.

Emergency · any time

Michael Levine

CEO · (877) 728-5550. Call, do not email. The phone is on the bedside table.

Cold chain alarm

Sydney Langhorn

Director, Food Safety. Reefer temp out of band, lot suspect, hold needed.

Order on dock

Ian Lindsay

VP Logistics. Truck late, dock door swap, driver issue, BOL question.

Customer question

Danielle Scibelli

Customer Service Lead. Account issues, order status, ETA confirmations.

Payment / wire

Lorraine Peterson

CFO. Wires out, large AR posture, banking issues, payment exceptions.

Equipment broken

Richard Gallo

VP Operations. Forklift down, line jammed, freezer compressor flagging.

■ The list is short on purpose. Six names cover most of what goes wrong. The rest is judgment.

Departments at a Glance

Headcount by function, current snapshot.

Operations

~42

production · assembly · facilities

Logistics

~22

dock · drivers · dispatch

Customer & Sales

~12

CS · sales · bid intake

Finance

AR · AP · banking

Food Safety & QA

SQF · HACCP · QA lab

Admin

~10

IT · HR · compliance · front office

■ Numbers shift quarter to quarter. Headcount per function is reviewed at every all-hands.

Tenure Distribution

Eight people who have been here a long time.

2008

Maria S. — 18 years on the dock. Receiving lead, second shift.

DOCK

2010

Carlos R. — 16 years driving. Knows every K-12 route in the boroughs.

FLEET

2011

Patty M. — 15 years in accounting. Closed every month since 2011.

FINANCE

2013

Luis G. — 13 years on a forklift. Trained most of the current dock crew.

DOCK

2014

Jenny T. — 12 years in customer service. NYC DOE account from day one.

2015

Roberto V. — 11 years in QA. Built the current lot-integrity checklist.

2017

Theresa K. — 9 years in vendor setup. Owns the procurement onboarding.

PROCUREMENT

2018

Marcus B. — 8 years in operations. Lead on the meal-kit line.

OPS

■ Tenure is a brand promise. The people who load your truck have loaded it before.

Daily Rhythm at GFS

A typical workday on the floor.

5:30 AM

Dock opens

First receivers in. Lights on freezer A. Coffee on in the front office.

7:00 AM

Front office in

Accounting, CS, sales at their desks. Phones go live. First emails out.

10:00 AM

Wave 1 picked

First pick wave released and staged. RF guns light up. Dock 1 loading.

12:00 PM

Lunch — kitchen open

Open table in the conference room. Anyone sits with anyone. Mike usually shows.

3:30 PM

Dock closes for receiving

No more inbound trailers. Outbound staging continues until lights out.

6:00 PM

Front office out

Phones forward. Reefer alarms armed. Last car off the lot.

■ The shift is the unit of work. Hit the shift, the week takes care of itself.

Hiring Pipeline

Five steps. Slow on purpose.

We hire for the long shift. Pancakes on day one, a chair at the lunch table for the next twenty years. Slow in, slow out.

APPLY

Resume in. Referral preferred. Most hires come from someone on the floor.

PHONE WITH MIKE

Twenty minutes with the CEO. Plain language, no script, no panel.

FLOOR TOUR

Walk the dock with the hiring manager. See the work. Meet the team.

OFFER

Verbal first, written second. Start date inside two weeks if possible.

PANCAKE BREAKFAST

Day one. US Waffle pancakes in the kitchen. The whole front office stops by.

■ We do not run open reqs we are not ready to fill. Every offer is a real seat.

Onboarding First Week

Five days. Every milestone has a name attached.

Day 1 · MondayPancake breakfast + floor tour with hiring manager

Day 2 · TuesdayShadow on the dock — receiving, picking, loading

Day 3 · WednesdayNetSuite login, computer setup, badge, email, phone extension

Day 4 · ThursdayCold chain training — SQF basics, reefer protocol, lot integrity

Day 5 · FridayFriday floor walk with Mike — every aisle, every rack, every name

■ Onboarding does not really end at week one. It tapers. Year one is still onboarding.

Recognition

Recent kudos from the floor, the office, and the customer.

May 21

Sarah caught a labeling error on the Driscoll lot before the truck rolled.

CUSTOMER

May 19

Marisol caught a duplicate PO before it hit accounting. Saved a cheddar overbuy.

PEER

May 18

Dock crew turned a 19-pallet load in 22 minutes. New floor record.

MIKE

May 16

Jordan walked an NYC DOE buyer through the spec on speakerphone at 6:40 AM.

CUSTOMER

May 14

QA pulled a short-coded lot before it shipped. Replacement out same day.

MANAGER

■ Kudos are written down on Fridays. If you saw it, say it — in writing — before the weekend.

Communications Tree

Four channels. One purpose each.

PHONE · urgent

EMAIL · documented

SLACK · quick chat

NETSUITE · transactional record

Phone

Urgent issues, cold chain alarms, late trucks, customer escalations. If the building is on fire, the phone rings first.

Anything that needs paper. Quotes, BOL confirmations, vendor terms, customer signatures, audit trails.

Slack

Quick questions between desks. Two people, one DM. Not for decisions, not for receipts.

NetSuite

Where the work lives. Customers, items, lots, POs, invoices. If it is not in NetSuite, it did not happen.

■ Wrong channel, wrong answer. Phone for fires, email for paper, NetSuite for the record.

Roles Map

Eight functions. One sentence each.

01 Function

Order Management Admin

Inventory, logistics, USDA drawdown, lot allocation, route planning.

02 Function

Food Safety

SQF, HACCP, cold chain audits, hold and release, lot integrity.

03 Function

Customer Service

Account questions, order status, ETA confirmations, issue resolution.

04 Function

Sales

Customer relationships, bid intake, quote generation, contract terms.

05 Function

Finance

AR collections, AP payments, banking, cash posture, monthly close.

06 Function

Procurement

Vendor setup, PO issuance, item onboarding, terms negotiation.

07 Function

Operations

Production lines, assembly, facilities, building, maintenance.

08 Function

IT / Systems

NetSuite, Cloudflare platform, AI agents, network, hardware, security.

■ Eight functions cover every seat in the building. Two facilities, one map.

Brand Ambassadors

We are the brand.

The cobalt polo, the mono numbers, the plain language on the phone — that is the brand. It is not a logo on a truck. It is the way the receiver says hello, the way the buyer answers a tough question, the way the dock crew loads a school district at 5:30 in the morning.

If you work here, you carry the brand. Every call, every email, every pallet.