There is a growing contingent of Cairn University graduates for whom “Cairn Special” immediately evokes involving all five senses. It’s requested like a secret menu item with a flash of a Cairn student ID. Buy a large drink and a large fry, and get an original sandwich or eight-count nugget for free. Today’s students know the schedule: Monday at Oxford Valley. Tuesday at Langhorne. Thursday at Neshaminy.
The Cairn Special remains the cheapest meal a college student can buy off campus. And while that is attractive, it is not what keeps students coming back. The food is good, and it serves as the foundation for something even better. A Chick-fil-A booth has served as a mainstay for many Cairn students’ community building and cheap first dates. And for a select few, it introduced them to a future career as a Chick-fil-A owner-operator.
Chick-fil-A’s franchisee selection process is extremely competitive. It receives an average of 40,000 applications per year and from that accepts little more than 100, substantiating the claim that it is easier to get into Harvard than it is to be selected to be a Chick-fil-A operator. Despite these slim chances, Cairn University alumni still represent among the operator ranks. 2026 includes the opening of the fifth owned and operated restaurant by a Cairn University alumnus.
These four men who have been selected to lead come from various backgrounds and took vastly different career paths toward ownership. The common thread? Their Cairn University experience was a pivotal moment on their trajectory to Chick-fil-A ownership—from business degrees and peer relationships to introducing them to their very first chicken sandwich.
Alex Crawford ’17/G’17
Rochester, NY
The Fall of 2013 is when Alex began to study Bible and business at Cairn University. It’s also when he had his first Chick-fil-A sandwich. Chick-fil-A was a staple of his Cairn experience. While he was inspired by the culture (and the food!), he did not take a direct path to franchising. Alex interned with a local Geico office in his final semester at Cairn. He was then invited to join their Emerging Leaders program after graduation. This began a career that would require his family to move several times. Alex and his wife, Lindsey (McCulloch) ’17, moved five times as Alex moved up the Geico ranks. Their family eventually settled in Buffalo, NY, where Alex sat at the helm of the corporation’s customer service.
Alex is a lifelong New Yorker hailing from Long Island, but despite being back in his home state, the freezing temperatures of Western New York were a significant adjustment. The Crawfords did, how ever, quickly warm up to and fall in love with the people and culture of the area. Instead of seeing Buffalo as a transplant location for Alex’s career, they saw it as a place where they wanted to plant deep roots for their family.
While Alex wanted to stay in Western New York long term, that did not mean he wanted to stay with the corporation that originally brought him there. He enjoyed his work at Geico, but he ultimately decided to pursue a dream he had considered for several years: to own and operate a Chick-fil-A. He saw this career path as “the clearest alignment of my MBA and Bible degrees.”
Deciding to apply was just the start. Over the course of two and half years, Alex participated in several phone interviews; flew to Chick-fil-A headquarters four times for in-person meetings; and participated in a stress test, where he was thrown into a Chick-fil-A during the lunch rush to see how he would react and adapt. Chick-fil-A has high standards for the character of their operators, so extensive interviews with applicant references are central to the selection process. Among his professional references were Dave Heffernan, the owner of two of Cairn’s local Chick-fil-As, and Dr. Tony Hurst, part-time faculty member at Cairn.
Many operator-hopefuls work full-time at a Chick-fil-A location for years before submitting a franchisee application. Alex was not in that position, but he understood the advantage of direct team member experience. In the midst of interviewing, he decided to get a part-time job at a local Chick-fil-A. He worked one, eight-hour shift before he got the call to open a store of his own.
Alex is part of the 20% of Chick-fil-A operators who were selected outside of the CFA leadership development program. This minority position has several somewhat obvious challenges: He was selected to be an operator with out an intimate knowledge of every part of the menu, without the experiences of running a shift during a peak mealtime or navigating the challenges of being short-staffed. But at the same time, his experiences at Geico translate directly to some of the most important qualities of any Chick-fil-A operator: excelling in customer service, leading by serving, and using data-driven approaches to innovate and adapt to challenges. And since he
did work one shift, he already had a name tag.
Chick-fil-A Citygate opened in Rochester, NY, on February 5, 2026. The business of selling chicken and waffle fries is still brand new, but his seasoned leadership has him well-positioned to lead his team to serve his community well.
Brad Burkholder WWC’06/’09
Harrisburg, PA
When Brad graduated high school, he decided to leave his home in Lebanon, PA, to commit to a year at Wisconsin Wilderness Campus. This year of studying the Bible in the great outdoors was what Brad describes as “the best year of my life,” and it set him on a trajectory that would give him a career and the opportunity to return to his Central PA roots.
Upon finishing his year at WWC, Brad chose to continue his studies on the main campus as a business major. It was here in Langhorne that he first became acquainted with Chick-fil-A. In his undergrad years, he attended three Chick-fil-A grand openings. These events combined two of his favorite things: camping out in a tent, and free food.
The hard-earned free meal coupons on top of the Cairn Special student discount meant that Brad had every reason to spend an above-average amount of time at Chick-fil-A Oxford Valley Road. Through these visits, he built a relationship with the store’s owner, Dave Heffernan. Seeing that Brad was a business major, Dave suggested the obvious: Brad should pursue a career with Chick-fil-A. Brad was not interested in that: “I said, ‘I’m not doing fast food.’ I just like eating it.”
This opposition did not last more than a few months after graduation. The summer after he graduated, Brad was ready to get married and needed a job. Dave connected him with a new operator at Chick-fil-A Exeter in Reading, PA. It was in this restaurant that he began to truly see Chick-fil-A as more than “fast food.” The turning point was a guest interaction with a grandfather and his grandson:
“He said, ‘Can you tell my grandson about the story of Chick-fil-A? Because it’s such an amazing story.’ So, I shared the history and core values of all Chick-fil-A restaurants. . . . That’s when I realized this is a different company. This isn’t just some fast food career. There’s more to it.”
It was after this interaction that Brad “locked in,” studying CFA training videos after late-night closing shifts and personally committing to being the best employee he could be. His operator noticed this shift and—like Dave did just a couple of years before him—he encouraged Brad to pursue a long-term career with the company. This time, Brad was ready to heed that advice. After 1.5 years at Chick-fil-A Exeter, Brad was selected to be the interim manager of the Chick-fil-A in the Berkshire Mall. A year later, he became its operator at just 25 years old.
Brad is quick to share that his time at the mall wasn’t glamorous. The Berkshire Mall location was one of the lowest volume restaurants in the entire chain. What this location did not offer in profits, it offered in what money can’t buy: a chance to be humbled at a young age, space to make mistakes, and an acute awareness that he was in the right career. It also offered the opportunity to work near his hometown, a non-negotiable for his growing family. If he were ever to leave the mall, it would be without uprooting his family’s life in Central PA. Four years passed. Then God opened a new door: Brad was selected to operate a new Chick-fil-A location in Harrisburg, just 20 minutes from his childhood home.
Brad celebrated ten years at Chick-fil-A Lindle Road in March 2026. Looking back over the past decade, one of the highlights has been the freedom he has to dynamically integrate his faith into his work. He has led devotionals in board meetings, prayed with his staff, and hosted Bible studies in his restaurant. “If I were to create my own restaurant or business, I would build it on the same values as Chick-fil-A. I am passionate about Chick-fil-A because they align with my values and beliefs. That’s how I know I’m in the right place.”
Josh Maxwell ’06/G’12’14 and Luke Trader ’10
Egg Harbor Twp, NJ and Christiana, DE
By the time Josh graduated high school, he had been living out of his car for nearly two years. He left home at 16 because of his father’s addiction to drugs and alcohol. So, when he arrived at Cairn to begin the youth and family ministries program, he found a home—both physically on campus and in the relationships he built with Dr. Matt McAlack and his future wife, Corrie. It was at Cairn that he also built a friendship with classmate Luke Trader ’10, who would later be the one to bring him into a career at Chick-fil-A.
Josh and Luke first met on a plane to Germany. They were seated next to each other on the initial flight to the University-sponsored Martin Luther tour over spring break in 2005. Luke was a full-time youth pastor completing his degree one course at a time, so their paths did not cross much on campus before or after this trip. But the friendship built on this trip would continue to grow through the years that Josh volunteered in Luke’s youth ministry.
A few years after graduation, Josh and Corrie were married and serving at a church in Nevada. It was there Josh decided that full-time vocational ministry was not where he wanted to be, but he didn’t know exactly what he should do instead. He moved his family to New Jersey, to be near Corrie’s family and figure out what to do next. That’s when Luke offered him the opportunity to work with him again, this time at Chick-fil-A.
Luke had recently left full-time ministry and was working for Chick-fil-A Corporate, serving as an interim manager at the Quaker Bridge Mall location. When Josh told him that he moved into the area and was looking for work, Luke offered him a $10/hour team member position, which Josh quickly accepted. Several months later, Luke transferred to another mall location in Wilmington, DE, and he invited Josh to come with him. That offer was much harder to say yes to, but he still accepted:
“I was driving an hour and 20 minutes each way to work in my 1992 Ford Explorer,” said Josh. “I was working 60, 70, 80–hour weeks, but I didn’t feel I was competitive enough to become an owner/operator.”
To bolster his resume, he returned to school full-time. He transferred to a restaurant in Delran, NJ, and used the time he saved on his commute to earn an MBA degree from Cairn, graduating in 2014. Degree in hand, he felt prepared to enter the candidate pool. The following year, he accepted the offer to become the owner/operator of a Chick-fil-A in Jackson, TN.
Josh operated Chick-fil-A Old Hickory Mall for three years. In his first year, he earned the regional Rookie of the Year designation, Symbol of Success, and Champions Club—internal awards for Chick-fil-A Operators who hit certain sales and profit quotas year over year. In 2018, he returned to New Jersey to take over as Operator of Chick-fil-A Egg Harbor Township. As for Luke, he became the Operator of Chick-fil-A Christiana in 2016 and, as of April 2025, Chick-fil-A University Plaza in Newark, DE.
You can look at Josh and Luke’s stories and see two youth pastors that left the ministry. In a sense that’s true. But if you think that means they are no longer doing ministry, you’d be mistaken. Service is at the center of Chick-fil-A’s culture; they call it “second-mile service,” echoing Jesus’ call from the Sermon on the Mount. This happens every day, all day between Chick-fil-A team members and guests. But it has the potential for even more impact when the operator goes the extra mile for his employees:
“We want to have a positive influence on all guests who come through the drive-thru—which is only two to three minutes a visit,” said Josh. “But as an operator, I have six to eight hours a day, six days a week where I can make an impact on my staff.”
Both Josh and Luke have been very successful over the 10+ years that they have operated their restaurants. It is the result of hard work and a commitment to excellence. While this has sometimes been celebrated with accolades, it isn’t what is most important:
“It’s not about who has the most sales and who can be the best. It’s better to ask the questions, ‘How are we serving people, and how are we serving God?’ It’s an awesome opportunity to be a part of a business that asks those questions and to be able answer them faithfully.”
