Executive Suite: Anthony Missano, Melville

Anthony Missano began his tenure at Sbarro Llc, the Melville-based fast-casual Italian chain, as a dishwasher and intended to stay for six months. That was the summer of 1975.

Since then, Missano, 54, now Sbarro's president of business development, has had a career that has undergone many incarnations, as the company evolved from a small family business to a global chain of more than 1,000 locations.

Some people change companies to build resumes and gain skills.

Missano, a Huntington native, said he's been able to do that at one company.

I learned in my junior year that I was going to be able to graduate a year early, and I couldn't start college until January of '76. So there was a grand opening at Sbarro in Huntington, and my parents drove me there. I got a job as a dishwasher. I was a little upset. I was like, "Geez, I could be pumping gas and working on cars."

But the first day, one of the Sbarro family members saw me and said, "You've been washing dishes all night. I want you to do food prep instead." After my first day, I was promoted from dishwasher to food prep, and I thought that was kind of cool.

Every time another four to five weeks would pass by, I'd get introduced to a different position. I went from food prep to line cook to pizza maker. By December, I was given the keys to open the restaurant.

A couple of years after I started, Sbarro was opening up additional restaurants. I was asked to go to these restaurants and train the staff. Here I am just turning 20, and I am traveling to Canada and Puerto Rico, and I had never really traveled before.

I wasn't thinking real long-term . . . At the time I thought I had done well enough to graduate school a year early. I had this free year to do what I wanted. I was making money [and] learning a trade. And it was Italian heritage for me. It was exciting for me to be able to cook so many dishes from scratch.

The economy was also terrible at the time. I was just really grateful I had a good job that I really liked.

About four years after I started working, there was a gentleman who joined Sbarro from another restaurant chain.

The first few days he was there, he said to me, "Tony, don't put that apron on today. You're a manager. If you have to jump in because it's unavoidable, fine. But I want you to direct people."

That was significant because it was another skill I had to learn that had nothing to do with working with your hands. Now, it was strategy.

As the company was growing, some really talented people were coming in. When I watched someone solve a problem well, I said, "I like that style" . . . and then I would take some of those characteristics and make them my own.

CORPORATE SNAPSHOT