Stephany Bravo
Staff Writer

California State University, Bakersfield students and faculty had the pleasure of having J. Patrick Doyle, President and CEO of Domino’s Pizza, speak in the CSUB Distinguished Speaker Series on Wednesday, May 14 at 6 p.m. in the CSUB Amphitheatre. Doyle was the second speaker in the Distinguished Speaker Series to express on his behalf the efficacious actions he took towards the evolvement of Domino’s Pizza.

“Our business is something that students can relate to, everyone understands pizza and the fundamentals of what we do, and I think what makes our story interesting is how we have done it in a different way, we’ve done things with our brand and our business that are kind of unique over the past few years,” said Doyle.

Doyle was accompanied by CSUB alumnus (`89, `94), and Congressman Kevin McCarthy serving as honorary chair and Dr. Horace Mitchell, President of CSUB. “I believe in entrepreneurship and I want to bring the best and brightest entrepreneurs around the world here to Cal State Bakersfield because there are great opportunities here in Kern County and [also] great students here,” said McCarthy.

Doyle took over the Domino’s Pizza Company during a down time, he found that they were great on delivery but the taste of their pizza wasn’t magnificent.

“Doing the basic things really well gets you noticed, and it is going to drive your career, and it’s going to give you great opportunities,” said Doyle.

He understood the customer’s wants and needs and went on television to publically admit that their pizza did not taste great and he was going to change that.

“[Using Doyle’s speech for my future success] I will fix things instead of criticizing things, because there is a lot of criticism [in my field of work] but never people who fix the problem,” said freshman and art major Nisha Vanakarnkovit.

Now with 11 thousand franchises and more features to offer its customers, such as food variety from pastas to deserts and online ordering, Doyle has productively transformed the way people view Domino’s Pizza.

“It’s really about being bold, the people that came today understand what Domino’s has done, it’s about doing something dramatically different, in our case it was when we reformulated our pizza and then came out and publically admitted that [the pizza] wasn’t really good before and that has driven terrific results for us,” said Doyle.

Not only has Doyle exceeded the revolutionary work of transforming Domino’s Pizza but also continues to strive for attainment. During his teen years, Doyle always kept it mind that “it doesn’t matter what you do, work smart, attitude is everything,” and he did just that by working at a painting company to soon be recognized by the president of the Bank of Chicago who suggested he work for him.

Since then he has held many prosperous occupations such as vice president and general manager for Gerber Products Company’s U.S baby food business, as well as launching its Tender Harvest organic line. He also assisted in the past as president of Domino’s USA, executive vice president of Team USA corporate stores and executive vice president of Domino’s Pizza international for six years.

“Any company in Kern County can learn [his] story, improve their business, but also get an entrepreneur edge on how to improve,” said McCarthy.

“As I look back on my career I think the most important thing for students [to take away from my speech] is if you do everything really well, no matter what you are doing, no matter what job you enter into, you are going to get noticed,” said Doyle.

CSUB students were captivated and intrigued by Doyle’s discourse about his achievements. “It’s not every day that you see a CEO from a large national company come speak to CSUB students so we have to take advantage of every opportunity we have to ask questions that will provide answers that we aren’t going to hear from anyone else,” said Duran.

Mr. Doyles Distinguished Speaker Series was noted as informative, humorous and unique to our community as explained by Duranand Vanakarnkovit. “[I will use Doyle’s information] primarily with how I handle public reception, it’s important in the public and private sector to have good relations with the people of large social media and how the organization is viewed by the public,” mentioned Duran.

“It’s a great opportunity for the University students to see some great minds out their [regarding the Distinguished Speaker Series] to be inspired. It’s good for the community as well, for them to see the value of the university. I am trying to build the university to be even stronger, especially in entrepreneur and in business, think that is a great growth for the economy of Kern County and bring up the next generation of entrepreneurs,” said McCarthy

Fun facts about Mr. Doyle:
• Can juggle
• Eats pizza once or twice a week,
• Top two favorite pizzas are: Pacific Coast Veggie on thick crust and handmade pan pizza with pepperoni.