Gary Roberts: delivering the good stuff.

• Author: Sweeten, Liz
• Position: People - Arctic Circle Restaurants - Brief Article

Guests still receive a courtesy cone at Arctic Circle restaurants. A small gesture, but it makes a difference. This hospitality is typical of the company's president and CEO. Fifty-year-old Gary Roberts strives to infuse graciousness and authenticity into his corporate climate and into each and every Arctic Circle restaurant.

"Our goal is to more than satisfy every customer," Roberts explains. After 28 years with Artic Circle, he understands how to maintain a profitable organization. "You can't just unlock the door, sell hamburgers and be successful," he says. "People are the key to any business' success. I believe in other people. My job is to be a cheerleader - to motivate and help people do their jobs."

Managing a restaurant chain wasn't Roberts' original plan, though his background seems to have been the perfect training ground. "I've been in the restaurant business forever," he laughs. Roberts worked as a waiter at the Hermitage Inn in Ogden, and later as the manager of a Village Inn, when he was attending Weber State University. While working to complete his accounting degree, he took a job with Arctic Circle as assistant training manager. After graduation, he moved on to accept a job with the State of Utah as an auditor. "I was there for two days, and I thought 'Boy, did I make a mistake,'" he relates. "I was in a cubicle with 85 other cubicles."

Meanwhile, Arctic Circle lost their training manager in a tragic auto accident. The owners arrived on Roberts' doorstep one evening. "They said, 'What would it take for you to come back to work for Arctic Circle?'" he explains. "I thought I'd like a 40-hour work week, two weeks paid vacation and all these stupid things. They said, 'How would you like 40 percent ownership in the training store?'" Roberts seized the opportunity.

"I moved that store from number 23 in a chain of 25 to number one in three years." he says. Over the next several decades, Roberts weathered two company ownership changes and finally had an opportunity, in 1992, to purchase Arctic Circle with the help of two...