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Favorite Tillamook Recipe: Cheese enchiladas.
Most people that tour the Tillamook Cheese Factory probably don’t stop to think about how those huge machines that make the cheese get cleaned.
Great cheese, after all, relies on a delicate balance of cultures, temperatures, environmental conditions and so many other factors.
For sanitation specialist Maria Leos, that balance starts with keeping the equipment clean. She’s been tearing apart the machinery and making sure it was properly sanitized for the past three years. And she loves what she does.
“I love my job, and I try to do the best I can so that I will be satisfied with the work that I do,” she says humbly.
“When I clean, I don’t just think of my job. I think of the people that consume the product – my family, my kids and people all over the world.”
Leos has five kids, ranging in age from 6 to 20 years of age, and raising them right is also extremely important to her. So much so, that she goes out of her way to set a good example.
When Tillamook Cheese approached her about the opportunity to record the public service announcement about the Great Food Drive in Spanish for KGW this year, she leapt at the opportunity.
“It’s a real honor,” she says. “I hope it encourages Hispanic people to support the program.”
The Leos family.
