[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Hi, everyone. Welcome to Spoiler Alert! I'm Dr. Darin Detwiler.
[Callin Godson-Green] And I’m Callin Godson-Green.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] And we're at Smart Sense Live 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. And we are with:
[Ashley Hammond] Ashley Hammond.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Welcome, Ashley.
[Ashley Hammond] Thank you.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] And this is your first time.
[Ashley Hammond] Second time.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Wow. Well, for those in the audience who have no idea who you are, what do you do and who are you with?
[Ashley Hammond] So I'm the Assistant Manager of Food Safety at the Hershey Entertainment Complex. So that includes the famous Hershey Park, as well as the Giant Center, Hershey Park Stadium, and theater as well.
[Callin Godson-Green] And how long have you been with Hershey?
[Ashley Hammond] So I've been with them for a total of three years so far. I started out on the operations side of things. So I was a manager in the park, overseeing about 6 stands. And I was actually going to leave the company because it was not giving me a good work-life balance. And then the Food Safety Manager at the time came to me and she said, hey, I have this position I want to fill. You should apply for it. I said, all right. And then not thinking I would ever go into the food safety industry at all, ever. But then I ended up taking the position, fell in love with it, and here we are.
[Callin Godson-Green] Some people just have food safety in their blood, you know? She obviously knew you did.
[Ashley Hammond] I think she did.
[Callin Godson-Green] So you started there three years ago. That would have been kind of just post-pandemic-ish, probably still pandemic-y times. Do you think that over those three years, you've seen massive changes with regards to technology in the food safety world? Or has that always kind of been a focus for Hershey? Or what are you seeing?
[Ashley Hammond] It really was not a focus until I got my position in food safety, which was like 2 years ago. So as soon as I got the position, I kind of was their technology person. So we introduced iPads and switched all of our paperwork to be on Google and stuff like that. We switched to SmartSense, got all of our units with thermometers, sensors in them, and then also Bluetooth thermometers and whatnot. So yeah, it was a quick flip as soon as I got my position to technology, for sure.
[Callin Godson-Green] Hope you were going with computers before then.
[Ashley Hammond] Luckily I was, but I had to learn a lot though, too, for sure.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] You mentioned work-life balance, and then you were talking about technology. How do you leverage technology to balance the compliance commitment balance.
[Ashley Hammond] So I think prior to technology, we were more focused on the client side, just kind of collecting those temperature logs, making sure everything is being completed properly. But now after technology, we're able to be a lot more proactive with things and kind of build on that culture, just getting everyone to see what tasks they need to complete, be on top of it. stuff like that. I think a lot of it has freed me up to be more hands-on in the operation, which makes a huge impact. If the employees are seeing you following food safety practices and encouraging them and coaching them hands-on on the front line, it really gets them thinking about it constantly as well, which has really helped things out.
[Callin Godson-Green] It's almost like it started as kind of a tick the box exercise or, you know, like to satisfy the health department, make sure you're doing things that you needed, but it actually as you said, freed up your own time so that you could kind of be more proactive and actually change things to begin with.
[Ashley Hammond] And I've been even able to make things more into a competition, which is really fun for our high school students and employees and stuff like that. So each stand is kind of like pinned against each other, competing of like, can I have the most checklist completion? Can I like get the best infection scores and stuff like that? So it's been really fun creating those challenges and getting them.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Well, you have sounds like you're having younger and younger employees.
[Ashley Hammond] Yeah.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Probably people entering the workforce that are expecting to see technology being used much more.
[Ashley Hammond] Yeah, so that has greatly helped us in the park specifically with our demographic being between 14 and 18 for the majority of them. Ironically, though, our other locations, specifically the Giants Center, is a lot of people coming after work or retirees. So we've had to do a lot of technology training over there, which was definitely a challenge for sure that I did not expect to have to do. But We're getting there. They're learning how to use an iPad for sure.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] It's that whole digital divide, the people that grew up with the technology and the people that literally are coming into an age where now they have to use it for the first time.
[Ashley Hammond] Exactly. We got both, best of both worlds.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Again, thank you for talking with us here on Spoiler Alert, but we want to kind of throw Spoiler Alert onto your shoulders. What is something that is on your radar? What is something that is a new concern or something that is out there on the horizon that you are kind of saying, hey, team, we need to be prepared for this?
[Ashley Hammond] I think I'm going to take this question a little bit different than what you guys were expecting. But I think one of the greatest challenges that we actually face is based off of technology. So specifically for me, and I touched on this a little bit earlier, my role became heavily technology based. So it flipped and I had to become knowledgeable in all things technology. I was basically tech support. If an iPad went down in the park, I was out fixing it or any of our like label printers or smart sensors, any of that, I was out. So I felt like it started taking me away from being really food safety focused and more almost tech support technology focused. And I think that's a big challenge of like, how do we balance that? Like, how do we set up our team to be able to handle those situations so we can still be focusing on the food safety thing? And is technology actually more beneficial with all the things that happen with it?
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] You know, it sounds like our theme we've uncovered is balance. Work-life, compliance commitment. technology, should we use it or not? Is it actually helping? Even the idea of employees who are young and they've grown up in an age of technology and those who are now older and coming into using technology. So when we talk about technology, when we talk about food safety, we have to consider a lot of things in terms of how do we justify the balancing act.
[Ashley Hammond] Yeah, exactly.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] So what would you recommend someone coming into, let's say your same exact position, and going, that all sounds great. But now you're like, I've got a lesson to tell you.
[Ashley Hammond] I think a lot of it is just being willing to constantly learn. There's so many people with so much knowledge and so much more experience than you. Be willing to find that mentor, find that person to really invest in you and just, yeah, constantly learn with it. And then be willing to pass that knowledge on to your employees as well. Find those tips and tricks that really help them make food safety easy and learn. day-to-day tasks and stuff is really important.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] And would you recommend to this other person that coming to an event like this is a great way to stay on top of all the changes and help and find that help?
[Ashley Hammond] Yeah, it definitely is. Last year, we were still relatively new to SmartSense. And coming here and connecting with a whole bunch of other users of SmartSense was huge for me. I learned so much, and it made the system so much easier. So yes, definitely be willing to come to these events, connect with other people, make those friends, because They're always a text away if you need their help, which is great.
[Dr. Darin Detwiler] Anyway, thank you for joining us. And also, thank you for everything you do in food safety. It is extremely important. And I know that, you know, there's so many things that sound like, oh, it's a task, it's a labor. But for those people who just want to make the assumption that all these leadership and food safety tasks are being conducted so that they can eat without having to worry, I think it's very important so that people ultimately remember their trip to a Hershey park for all the right reasons.
[Ashley Hammond] Exactly.
