Strolling through Orlando, Fla.'s Disney World theme park, Dieter Hannig is ready to stop and chat with visitors in English, German, Spanish, French or Portuguese. He is also ready to participate in the tradition of swapping one of the trading pins from his lanyard for someone else's. If he should happen to ask where someone has eaten at Disney and how he or she liked the food, it's more than idle conversation: He considers the answer critical to improving and maintaining the quality of Disney's massive foodservice operation.

Hannig, the park's senior vice president of food and beverage, oversees a department that handles some 100 million food and beverage transactions a year. His purview ranges from snack carts to fine dining--more than 500 locations in all. Though the volume of food and guests might seem overwhelming to outsiders, and the big picture definitely counts, he believes that the organization's ultimate success rests on satisfying each customer, one at a time. To Hannig, the central mission of Disney's food and beverage department is: "Make every guest feel special."

"We have all the other bells and whistles that anybody else has, the strategic plans and five-year plans and all those good things that people like to talk about," Hannig says. "But I think we rather take the approach of one guest at a time just because if he or she is happy and comes back, well, a lot of other people will hear about it."

Interest in cooking was only part of the reason why Hannig, who started his apprenticeship at age 13, became a chef. "Growing up in the early '60s in Germany, you didn't have many choices. Trade schools in general had been very, very popular. The culinary field appealed to me because it gave me an opportunity to travel, to move around" without having a negative career impact.

And move around he did, cooking at restaurants in Germany and Switzerland. There were two years in between when he was drafted into the military and served in the mountain climber brigade in Bavaria's "picture-perfect" town of Mittenwald. Then he worked more than 13 years for Hilton International in more than 20 countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and the United States.

"That makes you extremely flexible," he explains. "You have to adapt to the people; the people aren't going to adapt to you."

Travel also broadened his horizons in regard to the sheer wealth of diverse cuisines. With his classical training, Hannig says, "I initially felt I knew it all... but as I moved on, I realized that the more I'm in this business, I really don't know anything, which makes it a pretty humbling experience."

When Hilton International changed hands, Hannig took a job in 1988 with the start-up of EuroDisney that was later renamed Disneyland Paris. He was in charge of designing kitchens and planning concepts and menus for more than 25 food and beverage operations, including 15 American-themed table-service restaurants, one dinner-show concept for 1,200 people, plus bars and lounges.

Clifford Pleau, now director of culinary development and executive chef, New Business Division, for Darden Restaurants, worked with Hannig at EuroDisney. As Pleau explains, "In a lot of ways EuroDisney was a project that recapitulated all his travels into one location." Pleau describes Hannig as the "ringleader" of "one of the highest-power cooking teams that I've ever been associated with.

"I felt how rewarding it must have been for him to utilize, integrate all his travels and food experiences, and put them together and make so many styles of food all at once. There was no better-qualified person for the job."

Once the French resort was open, Hannig moved to Disney World where he has remained for about 10 years. Within the 30,000-acre resort, he oversees restaurants with an array of international themes. Far-flung trips for business and pleasure -- his idea of a vacation is climbing Mount Everest or trekking through Tanzania -- keep his culinary knowledge honed and updated.

At Disney some of Hannig's responsibilities include concept development, repositioning existing facilities and spearheading ongoing education for foodservice employees. His duties extend to working with Klaus Mager, director of food and beverage for Disneyland Hong Kong in planning for the debut of the Asian theme park, which is slated to open in 2005. And every day Hannig can, he hoofs it around the park for at least two hours to interact with guests.

When Hannig began in Orlando, people came to Disney for the entertainment and the attractions and the time was ripe to "raise the bar" to improve the quality of the cuisine. Lee Cockerell, Disney World's executive vice president of operations, describes Hannig this way: "He's extremely driven. He never gives up. He wears you down eventually to get what he wants." Cockerell says that energy carries over to Hannig's personal life; he is an avid participant in marathons and triathlons.

On the job Hannig's energy is very focused: "He's highly disciplined, with attention to detail. And to find a creative person who's got a lot of discipline -- that's unusual," Cockerell says. "He's quite inspirational to our chefs. People come and work for Dieter. He's really changed almost all the food concepts we have at Walt Disney World.

"He was a chef, so all of the chefs have a lot of respect for him. At the same time he understands the front-of-the-house and service, and he can design kitchens and put the front- and the back-of-the-house together so they work. He's really an important person in our business down here. We do almost a billion dollars in sales."

As an example of the way Hannig operates, Cockerell tells this anecdote: "We had this old restaurant on top of the Contemporary Hotel, which opened in 1971 when Walt Disney World opened. Dieter wanted to do a California concept up there. I remember we went to see [Disney CEO] Michael Eisner and asked for six and a half million dollars to renovate it. In those days people weren't too excited about spending millions of dollars on food concepts because it's hard to make money in that business and Dieter really pushed it through and got it approved. It's been one of the most successful restaurants [California Grill] in the country since then."

Hannig has streamlined fast-service outlets, limiting the menu in many instances to a single type of food, such as pizza or burgers or barbecue. Cockerell at first thought the notion was "crazy" but went along with it and now says: "What we've learned is, when you just pick one item or two, you do a better job. They're more profitable, and service is quicker. So I didn't believe him, but it worked. We've learned to trust him and let him do his thing."

At Disney employees are called "cast members," and Hannig likens the task of consistently producing excellent meals to a Broadway show. "Some of the great plays have gone on there for 10 or 15 or 20 years, and the visitors pay $50 for a ticket. They don't really give a damn if I have a problem with my wife, if I have a cold, if I really don't want to work or if I feel miserable. Those guests are entitled to have the best performance. And this [foodservice] is the same philosophical thing. Everybody has a role here."

To reinforce service standards, Hannig emphasizes training and education for employees at all levels. Even a pot washer needs to understand "how important his role is, to have his copper pots well polished and shined -- because if those pots go out on stage in an open kitchen, they're part of the show set." Cockerell cites the success of a Hannig-initiated "Service Excellence" program -- to the tune of "a million three, a million four" -- that retrained every employee, with a win-win-win result: dramatic increases in profits, better customer service and greater tips for the waiters.

Hannig's interest in education extends right up the food chain, so to speak. When he developed African-themed restaurants for Disney's Animal Kingdom, he sent a team of chefs to Africa to learn about the authentic cuisine. "I cannot just give them a report with a bunch of nice pictures and recipes in a Powerpoint and say, 'Go and knock yourself out.' No. I packed those guys on the plane."

Educated cast members who are passionate about the cuisine, in turn, can teach guests about foods and cultures they may not have experienced before. Some 300 sommeliers help guests in the various Disney restaurants learn about wines.

Cockerell credits another innovation to Hannig: "Everything's fresh here. We're not buying any product prepared already. We're making our own salad dressing. We're making our own salsas, and that's Dieter bringing it in and actually doing it well and doing it at a better price, frankly."