The ovens are already on. Warmers are coming up. Staff are moving with purpose, because in school nutrition, the day starts before most people realize it has started.
Students do not wait for the bell. They just show up hungry, ready to eat, and you have to be ready to serve them. You adjust. You figure it out. You keep going. Because meals need to be ready with no delays and no excuses.
If you’ve been in that kitchen, you know that school nutrition isn’t just software, it’s a responsibility. And the people doing this work deserve partners who actually understand that.
Coming back to what matters.
A lot of you already know this team from the TITAN days. We built and supported school nutrition platforms alongside districts across the country, and we learned the real work by listening to directors, managers, and cashiers in the middle of service.
After some time apart, we found our way back together at Apollo. We brought every lesson with us, including what it takes to run a reliable operation and what it takes to show up when the day gets messy.
The time apart clarified something important: alignment changes everything. When product, services, and support are pulling in the same direction, districts feel it. Decisions get made faster. Issues get solved sooner. The platform improves in the places that actually matter.
So before we talk about what we are building next, it helps to know who is in the room.
Who’s around this table.
If the name TITAN School Solutions means something to you, this team will feel familiar. We built it, scaled it, supported it, and learned a lot doing it. After some time apart, we found our way back together at Apollo, bringing the same philosophy with us: be transparent with districts, build for real operations, and stand behind the platform when it matters most.
Brad Blankenship is the founder and CEO. He has always built like a product and architecture person, not like someone chasing a slide deck. That matters because the decisions at the top still start with a simple question: does this make the day easier for the person running the line?
I’m Carol Weekly, VP of Services. I came the long way, from district nutrition operations to service leadership. My role at Apollo is to make sure implementation and support feel grounded, practical, and aligned to how nutrition programs actually run. Districts do not need more complexity. They need a platform and a team that can handle the messy parts of real life.
Lou Chappuie and Paul Conklin round out the leadership bench with the same straightforward approach many of you appreciated in the TITAN days. Lou helped design the support and implementation operating model that made the work sustainable and reliable behind the scenes. I was often the face of implementation, and together we built a service approach that worked because it was rooted in real operations and a deep understanding of the platform.
Paul helped build a sales culture that stayed transparent and direct. No overselling, no surprises, no “we’ll figure it out later.” We were upfront with districts then, and we are committed to that same approach now.
Behind the platform, Thomas Bertran leads with deep technical experience, helping shape systems that are scalable, reliable, and built for real district complexity. And Glen Kim brings financial leadership that ensures the company grows with discipline and long-term stability. That foundation matters just as much as the product itself.
And Camden “Cam” Iliff is an exciting addition to this group. Cam brings deep K-12 experience and a track record of making complex systems work in the real world. He strengthens the platform not just on paper, but in the daily experience of districts and school sites.
If you worked with us before, you’ll recognize the throughline. Same values. Better foundation this time.
The problems we’re actually here to solve.
“School nutrition platform” has meant a lot of different things over the years, and most of them have not served you well. Here’s what we see, and what we’re doing about it.
Platforms that were never built for your operation
Too many systems were built by people who have never set foot in a cafeteria. Menus do not match the way you plan. Reports do not match what the state actually asks for. Apollo is built by people who have been in the kitchen.
A POS that fails at the worst possible moment
Every director has a story about the system going down mid-rush. We obsess over reliability because we know what’s at stake when it breaks. Breakfast does not wait.
Free and reduced paperwork that eats your week
Applications, direct cert, CEP, verification, and claims. We’re building to compress that work, catch errors before they become findings, and give you your time back. You did not take this job to do data entry.
Compliance that feels like a trap
USDA rules shift. States add layers. Auditors show up. We build the trail into the platform, including production records, meal counts, offer versus serve, and reimbursement claims, so you are not scrambling the night before a review.
Vendors who disappear after implementation
Great sales process, decent go-live, then silence. Tickets sit. The person who knew your district moves on. Our answer is Apollo Care, a support team led by myself and Lou, staffed by people who know school nutrition. When you call, you get help. Not a queue.
A product that doesn’t keep up
A lot of you are running systems that served you well once, but the world has moved and they have not moved with you. The interface still looks like 2014. Integrations are brittle. New features arrive slowly. The state keeps adding reporting requirements the old architecture was never built to handle.
Meanwhile your staff and your students expect the same user experience they get everywhere else. Apollo is a fresh build on modern infrastructure: cloud native, mobile first, integration friendly, designed for the way school nutrition actually runs today, and ready for what’s coming next.
What we learned out there.
The single biggest lesson from years of implementations isn’t about technology. It’s about listening.
No two districts are alike. On paper, you all run the federal meal programs, but that is where the similarity ends. Your district has a personality. Your team has rhythms. A one-size-fits-all rollout fails you, not because the platform is bad, but because the approach is wrong.
We learned to walk in slowly. Ask first. Configure second. That habit is one of the most valuable things this team carries.
What’s next.
I’m a lunch lady, through and through. This community is my people. The directors, the managers, the cashiers, the cooks who show up before the sun does, you are the reason we do this.
If I could say one thing to a director reading this:
The team is back. We know your world. We’re bringing the same gold-standard care, sharper execution, and a deeper commitment to listening than we’ve ever had. If you’ve ever wished your platform partner understood your operation the way your own staff does, now is the moment to take a fresh look.
We’ve done this work before. We know what excellence looks like. We’re doing it better this time, and for more of you.
See what we’ve built. We’d love to feed this community alongside you.
