And today, how many Taco Bells do you operate? In total, we operate 138 franchises, and that is Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Long John Silver’s. But it started in the Taco Bell brand and continued to grow in that area.

In 1996, YUM! was called Tricon, and it was spun off from PepsiCo. And they had selected two people from each of the then three brands, two KFC franchisees, two Pizza Hut franchisees, and two Taco Bell franchisees—five guys and a girl. I was one of the franchisees at Taco Bell, and we met with David Novak as part of his franchise advisory committee, and it was the first time that franchisees from the respective brands sat down together.

During that period of time, there became opportunities to grow beyond one particular system. So in 1999, we got involved in the Pizza Hut system, in 2000 KFC, and 2006 Long John Silver’s.

It was an opportunity to provide different products and different points of distribution and delivery, and different dayparts. The relationship with YUM! has enabled us to provide a variety of food choices prepared in highly consistent quality, and offer the best in customer service with great support from each of the brands.

How has being an operator changed since you opened that first Taco Bell? One of the things that has changed is a driver of not only managing, but providing, the best in customer service, quality, and cost control. When I was first in training, orders were taken by hand and posted for preparation by employees on the line. Today they are entered into a point-of-sale register and immediately appear on video monitors on the food prep line. That has increased not only the speed, but the accuracy of the product. The back-of-house technology that we have now links our ordering capability with our suppliers, with our inventory controls, and really tracks very carefully our service, not just overall but by daypart. That enables us to better predict staffing and track seasonality and trend.

The other thing is how the products are prepared is somewhat different. For years tortillas were kept in a steam cabinet at one end of the line. There was water. They were heated. Now the newer lines have changed our product preparation. For example, any product made with a flour tortilla is now grilled, which gives it the great taste and flavor of a grilled product.

A third thing is now we have meetings in our designated marketing area, and they were at one time just marketing meetings. Now they are operational meetings. It is best-practice sharing as much as, “What is the next module of marketing that we are going to do?” And I think that is very good—the inclusiveness and the relationship between franchisees and corporate and franchisees and franchisees. In terms of sharing best practices, I think it has been very, very positive.

Twenty-five years into the business, YUM! concepts are the only concepts in Palo Alto’s portfolio. Why is that? Because I am passionate about the brands. They are different in many ways. When you look at the brands that we offer, they are premium brands, they are brands that are growing, brands that are strong.

We continue to look at other things, extensions of Pizza Hut, for example. We are doing some Wing Works now.

I was the president of Franmac, which is the franchise organization within Taco Bell (first woman to do that) and head of the marketing associations, where at one time it was corporate who did that. It is now franchisees. There are leadership opportunities for franchisees to become involved as opposed to corporate just sending out a presentation. That interaction between corporate and franchisees has been very positive in not only trying to grow the brand, but learning from each other. That’s why I feel positive about YUM!. It is a proactive, interactive type of system, even though it is a company and franchised.

On the concept innovation end at YUM!, there have been two big developments. There is Pizza Hut and its pasta efforts, and then KFC and its grilled chicken efforts. Are you involved in any of those concepts? Yes, they are being rolled out. Good, great variety.

New reports say some KFCs might change their name to Kentucky Fried and Grilled Chicken. Is Palo Alto considering doing that with its KFCs? I have not heard that. No, I am not aware of that.