Linda Crandall was a new RD living in Southern California. She and her husband had just moved from Arizona and were both beginning their careers after graduating from Arizona State.
Linda began consulting at a few long-term care centers and teaching a nutrition course at Ventura Community College. She loved being an RD and enjoyed the people she worked with. Over the next several years Linda grew her consulting practice while balancing a growing family.
1966
Linda and her husband moved to Flagstaff, AZ so he could attend graduate school. Linda started consulting at health clinics and other facilities across both the Navajo and Hopi reservations, as well as facilities in Winslow, Holbrook, and Flagstaff. Her days often involved long drives but she loved the work. It was here that Linda started developing systems to help her communities stay in compliance and maintain high standards. It was also here that Linda set a record for number of speeding tickets in a four-year span.
1975
Linda and Rex moved to Safford, AZ where her husband got a job at Eastern Arizona College. Safford is where both of their families had lived for many years.
This is also the first time Linda needed to hire another dietitian to help her cover her clients in northern Arizona along with a whole new list of clients in southeastern Arizona. Linda continued to refine and improve her systems.
1979
Linda continued to grow her practice across Arizona when in 1984 she and her husband moved to Mesa, AZ. Being in the Phoenix metro area brought an abundance of opportunities and Linda began hiring additional dietitians to cover an ever-growing practice. She continued to refine her systems and created a menu program for her communities to follow.
1984
Linda’s big break came in the early nineties when a Divisional for Life Care Centers of America liked what she was doing for their Arizona communities. He asked Linda if she would be willing to cover the Life Care communities in other western states. Linda loved the challenge of bringing consistency and high quality across several long-term care communities belonging to one client.
1991
Once Linda expanded beyond Arizona’s borders, the opportunities continued to present themselves. She was working in the basement of her home and had a couple of part-time employees and her mother helping out. In 1997, her son Rich, who is a CPA, joined the company after graduating with an MBA from Notre Dame. The company moved out of the basement and into a small office owned by a law firm in downtown Mesa. Several amazing employees brought skills and talent to help the company grow.
1997
In 2004, Crandall built an office in northeast Mesa to accommodate the growing company. The new building even included a test kitchen for recipe development as part of the menu writing process.
2004
As Linda looked at the senior living industry, she realized there was a need for a high quality, customer focused menu program. In 2006 CrandallMenus was launched. Linda differentiated CrandallMenus with exceptional live support at no additional cost, something still not provided by any other program today.
2006
Present Day
Today the company has a corporate staff of 26 amazing people handling everything from dietitian support, recruiting, menu development and support, accounting, software engineering, and training. This team supports 400+ dietitians in the field servicing thousands of communities. After 55+ years of dietary consulting, Linda still comes into the office to ensure high standards of customer service and industry innovation are adhered to.
Crandall’s mission is to deliver unsurpassed service, and loyalty and integrity are our cornerstones. We strive to continually exceed our customers’ expectations by providing comprehensive and leading-edge clinical and management systems and specialized menu programs. We employ superior dietitians who share our vision of excellence.
We help define what excellence is in assisted living and long-term care communities throughout the United States.
Contact us with questions or to request a proposal or demo. We’re here and happy to assist you!