We have dedicated roles. Mine is the chairman and the CEO of the holding companies, and then we have specific leaders and presidents of each of the brands. Technology enables us not only to pull, but to share information, to do marketing. Laptops and BlackBerries are wonderful.

I thought the important thing when I first started the business was the value of the retail center. I subsequently sold that, and now look where I am with Taco Bell. So life is all about change and about risk taking. And I love what I do. I think it is important. But it is not just my dream. It is the dream and the involvement of our organization that has built the corporate culture that shares not only in the day to day, but in that vision and that goal of, “How do we achieve not just growth, but how do we continue to achieve world-class operations to sustain our success?”

How do you go about creating a corporate culture that is focused on those types of goals? Recognition is an important thing, enabling people not to just understand they have a job but acknowledging them as an important asset. I do not believe the people in the Alvarado organization work for us, they work with us, so there is not a structure. We are all in it together, and we are a team committed to the growth and success of this operation.

Our restaurant general managers have a lot of skills that they continue to develop. I tell them, “When you go home, you should be very proud. Look down the street one way and up the street the other, find another person on that block who runs a $1 million or $2 million business. You are success stories.” And truly they are, and they need to view their accomplishments like we do, as the critical factor in the company’s growth and success.

You can have the best products, the best systems, the best restaurants, the best advertising, but it is all about people. [Our managers] are role models, as we tell them; [they are] coaches for other people in our organization. Many of our regional general managers started as hourly employees. As the company has grown, there has been a growth path for people. Many of these are women. Our company has thrived because of that.

The National Restaurant Association 2008 Forecast reported that operators say recruiting and retaining employees is their No. 1 challenge. What are some of the other challenges that you see coming up on the landscape? You know, I do not look at things as challenges. I look at them as opportunities. I truly do. Life is all about how you view it.

It is not to say that the market and the industry do not change, but to me it is an opportunity to get focused in understanding the issue and working together with our teams to create some form of positive resolution. Whether it is ops, cost of products, price of fuel, competitor pricing, or marketing, getting the right people in the right places with the right systems is great. But it is also having the right opportunity to share your ideas and not have an organization where it is dictated from the top.

I also find that YUM!, in competitive situations, is sharing that kind of information. Their search for additional resources and strategies has also been helpful and so [is] that communication, again, with people. [Other YUM! franchisees] are not my competitors, because when the customers go in those restaurants, they do not know who operates them. So sharing that information has always been a good thing.

At Palo Alto, what are you saying back in your offices about food costs and how you can address that? We are looking at training. We are looking at control. We are looking at efficiency in buying and tracking inventory levels, but making sure that the products we sell do not compromise the product quality or the weight or anything like that. So nothing has changed in that regard. This is an issue with all businesses. It was in 1983, it is today, and will continue to be. So we continue focusing on how we balance our product offering and our points of distribution. A lot of it is looking at synergies and energy and operational cost without compromising product.

What has you excited about the industry right now? People will continue to eat. They might cut back on certain things, you know, but people will always eat.

Conscientiousness about what people want to eat enables us to continue to be a strong, viable business, not just today, but in the future. If I were in a technology that was going to go away because of some great new one, I guess I would be concerned, but being with the right business, with the right brand, and trying to make sure that we are cognizant of those points of distribution and the things that all restaurants look at will enable us to continue to grow.