Shawn Lively, executive chef, Dietary, UPMC in North Central Pa., started in the food service business as a 13-year-old working for his uncle’s catering business in Lancaster. In his teen years, he worked at Country Cupboard in Lewisburg Pa., until he decided to take the next step in becoming a chef. Shawn completed the Le Cordon Bleu program with an associate’s degree in culinary arts at the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute and did a three-month externship at the Pinehurst Golf Resort in North Carolina. After going back to school for business education and considering the idea of becoming a teacher, Shawn ended up back where he wanted to be all along — in the kitchen.
Shawn has been the executive chef for the region since July and though he says, “don’t fix what isn’t broken,” he’s made subtle tweaks to recipes for patients, residents, and staff and is looking forward to tasting and updating more dishes.
Shawn has nearly 15 years of experience as a chef, working in long-term care as well as at Bucknell University. Some of his responsibilities include monitoring, adjusting, and creating recipes, assisting in the development of retail, patient services, and long-term care menus, and ensuring the consistency of recipes that are being used.
One of his biggest challenges is tweaking or creating new recipes while following the nutritional guidelines for patients.
“Regardless of how I feel from a culinary standpoint, oftentimes I have to take a step back and think, even though I understand that this could use more salt, or this could use more sugar, or this could use more fat or whatever it might be, I have to kind of rein that in a little and do what’s best for our patients,” Shawn said.
This allows for creative problem solving. Recently, Shawn was tasked with creating a better tasting protein pudding for patients and residents. He came up with versions including chocolate, vanilla, chocolate peanut butter, and banana, with a butterscotch pudding in the works. Each serving has 15 grams of protein, which equates to nearly two ounces of chicken. The pudding gets taste tested by other kitchen staff and is reviewed by dietitians before it’s rolled out across the region.
One of the things that worried Shawn when accepting the position was losing his creativity in recipes. But he’s come to find that he still gets to use his skills to their full ability. Retail spaces and catering are where he has a little more creative freedom, like with his new mac and cheese pulled pork bowl and sushi bowl. He’s recently created a new recipe for a sausage-stuffed mushroom that is on the catering menu and is in the process of tweaking and standardizing the chicken soup given to patients. Shawn also gets to create four seasonal dishes a year that are part of the Patient Innovation Menu. Executive chefs from each region are tasked with creating a seasonal meal based on a theme, and the winner’s meal will go systemwide. Spring 2
2025’s theme is Southwest Fresh, and Shawn’s meal features chicken chimichangas, southwest chicken, and a Mexican street corn salad.
While Shawn is still making his way through the various menus, his next big task is to get around to all the hospitals and senior communities to spend time with and cook with his staff to ensure there’s a standardization across all kitchens.
“I want to make sure I’m enveloped in what is happening in all our locations and then being able to look forward and push out new pieces and processes,” Shawn said. “Even without me, this team is amazing. They really are the backbone of what’s happening here. I’m just another cog in the in the wheel, and I’m trying to make sure that we’re following things correctly.”
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