Chick-fil-A’s Bridges, others to be feted at FS/TEC Awards Luncheon

ATLANTA Chick-fil-A Inc., is recognized as the $2.3-billion restaurant company’s IT architect and more, but he had to slay a project dragon early in his career to achieve that distinction. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Bridges, who is also Chick-fil-A’s chief information officer, will receive FS/TEC 2007’s Distinguished Career Achievement Award. He is known as a “gifted and skilled person” who “is always giving credit to others” and “attracting great people to work for us,” says Bridges’ boss, senior vice president and chief financial officer James B. “Buck” McCabe. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Bridges, 44, joined Chick-fil-A in 1993 after working as a management consultant for accounting giant Arthur Andersen. He will be recognized during the annual FS/TEC Awards Luncheon Oct. 12 in Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center. Joining him at the affair will be the winners, unpublicized until the ceremony, of the FS/TEC Team Excellence and Project Excellence honors, as well as recipients of Nation’s Restaurant News Technology Innovation Awards from within the industry’s quick-service, full-service and on-site segments. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Don Zimmerman, senior vice president and chief information officer for Arby’s Restaurant Group Inc. of Atlanta, will deliver a keynote speech during the luncheon. The luncheon, held in conjunction with the FS/TEC conference running Oct. 10-13, is free to conference registrants and ticketed exhibitors. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Bridges graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s of business administration degree that included concentrated studies in management information systems. While with Arthur Andersen, he approached Chick-fil-A about buying upgraded computer capabilities, but instead was sold on his potential to have a bright future with the chicken chain by McCabe. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Starting out as Chick-fil-A’s manager of special projects at a time when the information systems department was home to eight full-time employees, Bridges today oversees more than 100 people and numerous contractors. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

McCabe calls Bridges “master of our technology infrastructure,” but adds that the CIO’s value extends beyond the realm of hardware and software: “He has a real skill set tied to coordinating and bringing out cross-functional input from all areas of the company, almost as if he is a management consultant to us who happens to have an expertise in technology.” –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Chick-fil-A has asked Bridges to guide a two-year initiative beginning in 2008 to enhance the operational efficiency and throughput of the chain’s approximately 1,300 units. They have appointed him the task, which goes beyond technology to encompass all aspects of unit-level activities, because they appreciate the breadth of his management skills, McCabe says. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

McCabe laughs when he says that the career of Chick-fil-A’s chief information officer “almost ended at the beginning.” He makes that statement while talking about a turning point in Bridges’ Chick-fil-A life that just happened to come early in his tenure with the company and coincided with the public unveiling of Bridges’ first major IT project: the deployment of a complex enterprise computing platform. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

“It was an extremely challenging transition to go from a stable system that was limited in versatility to a more robust system that could handle future growth,” McCabe says. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

The new system had been billed as being much faster at handling payroll and other duties than its predecessor, but for many reasons initially was much slower, he said. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

The resulting nightmare led to a session in McCabe’s office at which “we had to sit there and make a choice of whether to abandon the new system and go back, or go forward and make it work,” the CFO says. Bridges was the deciding factor in persuading the management team not to give up on the enterprise application that “today really hums for us,” McCabe says. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

The enterprise software initiative ultimately succeeded because of a lot of toiling by a lot of people, McCabe says. Referring to Bridges’ role, he adds, “His greatest accomplishment, really, was pushing on and making it work.” –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

Such tenacity led former AFC Enterprises Inc. chief information officer Ed Brooks to once characterize Bridges as a great strategist who is always seeking best practices solutions. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

FS/TEC is co-produced and co-managed by Nation’s Restaurant News and Robert Grimes of Potomac, Md.-based Accuvia. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

FS/TEC’s founding sponsors are MICROS Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The corporate sponsors are Epson America Inc., PAR and Radiant Systems Inc. HyperActive Technologies Inc. and Torex Hospitality are the affiliate sponsors. –Jonathan B. “Jon” Bridges, vice president of information technology for

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