Food Services of America - Thomas J. Stewart Memorial Endowed Scholarship

Tom Stewart was a lot of things. He was a long-time philanthropist who supported education and the arts; a community activist championing free enterprise over government intervention; and an adventurer visiting the far reaches of the globe. His 40-year career was remarkable for its continual theme of building successful companies along a road that took him from the rough docksides of Seattle, Washington, to the careful development of one of the fastest growing and most successful privately-held corporations in America. But what made Tom Stewart a business leader was his skill at building teams that could adroitly manage the business challenges he created. Since he was a young boy in the 1950s, Tom Stewart knew that he wanted to be his own man. He watched and learned from the age of eight as he worked on the docks of Seattle for his father’s shipping company. Even at that early age, he learned that hard work and a “can do” attitude was the path he should follow to achieve his goal. Growing up in Seattle, especially on the waterfront, was no gilded existence. The weather can often be bleak and the work hard. In lieu of allowance, his father always had work for him to do every school break and summer vacation. As he grew older, his resolve to follow his own path grew stronger. This resolve that he learned at a very young age played itself out in world-class accomplishment. Tom Stewart sat atop a multi-billion dollar enterprise that employs thousands of hard-working Americans as its sole owner and chairman. Services Group of America’s very existence is living testimony to his skill as an opportunistic visionary, a deft financier, and a calculating risk taker. Today, the Services Group of America companies include Food Services of America, Systems Services of America, Amerifresh, Ameristar Meats, Event Services of America, and Development Services of America. Services Group of America companies reach customers in 17 Western and Midwestern states, Canada, Mexico, and the Pacific Rim with combined annual sales that top $2.5 billion. The continued growth and success of Services Group of America was due to Stewart never losing sight of the vision and executing his strategy with one basic philosophy in mind: “Take care of the customer, and everything else will take care of itself.” Sadly, in February 2010 Tom, his wife Madena, and their young daughter, Sydney, were among five people killed in a helicopter crash north of Phoenix, Arizona. In memory of Tom, Food Services of America established the Food Services of America – Thomas J. Stewart Memorial Scholarship Endowment at MSU Billings in June 2012. The endowment will provide scholarship assistance to non-traditional students enrolled in a business curriculum or to non-traditional students who have some type of agricultural background. The first scholarship was awarded in academic year 2012-2013.