Anna Sechrist

Kitchen Assistant

Anna Sechrist is the kitchen assistant in food programs. She helps run the day-to-day operations for the Food Innovation Accelerator and helps deliver food programs, events and classes to current and prospective clientele as needed.

The Food Innovation Accelerator is a shared use kitchen complex in K-State Olathe that serves as a food business incubator. More than 50 clients rent kitchen space and use the space’s professional/industrial equipment to scale up operations for their food-based business and quickly create large quantities of food products that can be sold at local farmers markets, online storefronts and in their catering business.

Sechrist assists the clients with product development and refinement, maintains kitchen cleanliness and sanitation, ensures kitchen equipment is functional and manages inventory of equipment and other resources. She also helps with program set-up and breakdown, food preparation and supports on-campus events and sensory studies hosted by the Sensory and Consumer Research Center.

Prior to joining K-State Olathe, Sechrist was a food service specialist for the Blue Valley Unified School District for eight years. She planned, prepared and served nutritious meals to elementary and middle school students while ensuring meals met dietary guidelines and food safety standards. She also completed daily reports on food consumption, costs, waste and inventory, maintained the cleanliness of the kitchens and dining areas and operated the cash register.

She also worked as a food service specialist for Wildwood Outdoor Education Center in Miami County, Kansas, and as a paraprofessional for Beth Shalom Early Childhood Education Center in Overland Park, Kansas.

She has an associate’s degree from Johnson County Community College.