A force to be reckoned with, smart, adventurous, helpful and kind.  These are the words that best describe McDonald’s Owner/Operator and CTM client Dorothy Stingley.

Dorothy was born and raised in a small, rural town in Michigan.  Population 500.  Even though she and her two younger brothers grew up in a tiny community, Dorothy had an extremely large extended family, including 72 first cousins. Her grandparents were dairy and food farmers, so at a very young age, Dorothy was exposed to the business side of food.

This exposure to food made a lasting impression on Dorothy, one which has carried through to this day. She is the first generation in her family to attend college, graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in Consumer Community Services and a minor in Nutrition.  After graduation, she took a position as a Job Developer for a Michigan youth employment program because she wanted to bring her academic knowledge back to her community.

Dorothy is a natural leader with an affinity towards educating others.  While attending a leadership workshop in Chicago, she met her husband Wayne Stingley.  At that time, Wayne was a newly approved McDonald’s Owner/Operator with one McDonald’s restaurant.  Wayne had a lot on his plate, and Dorothy wanted to help him with his business.  Although they had vastly different backgrounds, they realized that their business approaches complemented each other.  So Dorothy moved to Chicago.

Dorothy and Wayne were deeply committed to supporting the people that worked for them as well as the people in their community.  From a business perspective, they encouraged and empowered their employees to manage the restaurant.  The fact that the majority of managers at McDonald’s were women, but few were Owner/Operators was not lost on Dorothy.  This only fueled her efforts to support the notion of women getting approved as Owner/Operators.

She also has become a vocal advocate of women taking on leadership roles so their voices can be heard.  Dorothy feels like the most valuable things she has learned in life are from other women.  She is a strong supporter of the McDonald’s Women Operators Network, and in 2018, became president for a two-year term.  As president, she is focusing her efforts on learning and leadership development.

Championing women is also what prompted Dorothy to begin supporting The Hunger Project in the late 1980s.  The Hunger Project is a global nonprofit organization that is committed to ending world hunger.  Its programs focus on empowering women as agents of change, mobilizing communities to become self-reliant, and fostering strategic partnerships with local government. Dorothy strongly believes that when women have resources, they can accomplish more for the community as a whole.

Over the years, Dorothy and Wayne have combined their strengths to build a successful McDonald’s organization.  And though they started out in Chicago, they permanently moved to Arizona in 1993, to be closer to family and friends.  With a strong management team to run their 16 restaurants, Dorothy and Wayne are able spend more time giving back to the community. Most recently, they drove down to Florida to donate money, care packages and even their motor home to help families recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Michael.