Angelina Pilgreen, General Manager
My Leadership Journey
My McDonald’s journey began when I was 16 years old. I was in high school and was on the dance team, but I also wanted to make my own money, so I was looking for a job only on the weekends that would allow me to continue dancing. My friend told me that she had gotten hired at the McDonald’s on Airline in LaPlace, so I applied and was hired that day!
When I started working, I was our restaurant’s primary birthday party host on the weekends. I would come in just to do parties. Our restaurant had a huge Play Place and parties at McDonald’s were very popular, so I stayed very busy. When my school activities slowed down, I started to work more and started learning different stations in the restaurant. My General Manager could tell that I loved the fast pace of the drive-thru and I was good at it. I eventually became a crew trainer for the service area.
My leadership journey began when I was 17 years old, working the night shift when the assistant manager started asking me about my plans after high school and if I ever thought about going into management. I hadn’t thought about it until then. I was soft-spoken and shy at times and I didn’t think that was a good quality for a manager. My manager convinced me to give it a shot, so I did, becoming our restaurant’s closing and weekend overnight manager.
In 2005 I graduated from high school. I was enrolled at BRCC and was in the process of moving to Baton Rouge. My plans were to transfer to a location in Baton Rouge while I attended school. Then Hurricane Katrina hit, devastating New Orleans and the surrounding areas. At that time, my supervisor offered me a salaried position (Second Assistant) at our LaPlace Airline location. I knew this promotion would help with my tuition, so I agreed and stayed where my roots were and decided to commute back and forth. Over time I worked my way up to becoming a First Assistant at the Hwy. 51 location in LaPlace. It was around this time that I decided to make McDonald’s my career and I had aspirations of being a General Manager one day.
In 2009, at 21 years of age and planning my wedding, I got a phone call from my manager letting me know that when I returned to work on Monday morning, I’d be the new General Manager of our LaPlace Hwy. 51 location. I was excited but also very nervous.
During my time working in the LaPlace area, so many people influenced me and taught me so much over the years. Wade Breaux and Chris Stoud were two of the many leaders that poured knowledge and time into me. They taught me about the business and how to manage people. They saw potential in me that I couldn’t see myself.
Fast forward to 2018. I have now been a General Manager at 4 different locations. I had just taken over my new location and then was told that we would be under a new owner operator; MacLaff. I was so nervous, not sure what the future would hold for me. A lot of changes were happening at once, but little did I know it would be the best thing to happen for my career and for me personally.
Shortly after the ownership transition, I attended a store day at Crowley with Travis Foreman and was able to see the operations of MacLaff. They spent the day with me going over different systems and routines and gave me an idea of what my role as a General Manager should be. When I left that day, I had a new vision for my restaurant and for myself.
It wasn’t an easy transition by any means. Danny Reed and Niven Brown were the most impactful during that time. Having patience with me even when I pushed back really showed me how much they cared for their people and their development. I will always be grateful to them for those first few years with MacLaff, because they were the most impactful. Niven would say, “it just clicked.” Here I am 21 years later still learning and growing under Jason Stelly, who has also had so much impact on my development.
Never have the mindset that you don’t have what it takes to be a leader. Leaders come in all different shapes, sizes, and personalities. Just believe in yourself and surround yourself with great people and you WILL do great things! If I can do it, so can you!