"One of the things that we shared with them was the Reina Trust Model, which gave them an objective framework to look at issues in a non-blaming way," Reina says.

Initially, workers participated in confidential discussions Reina facilitated.

"They would share the gist of what's going on--never who said what," Mayer says.

Armed with his firm's new Team Trust Scale, Reina claims he can quantify the staff's improvement.

"Both the Eliot-Kirkland team and the CSG team participated in our Team Trust Scale in February, and it really indicates that we have some statistically sound improvement," he says. "The cooks are a lot more cohesive and they talk through issues. They feel they've got the skills and confidence to talk through issues and that they will be listened to."

Neither Reina nor HUDS officials would specify how much Reina and his firm charged for their services, but Alixandra E. McNitt, HUDS assistant director for marketing and communications, says it was within the budget for staff training.

Still, some staff members say the attention HUDS has paid to their difficulties--much of which came after The Crimson's November series on labor problems at HUDS--was almost overwhelming.

"For the first couple of months after the [Crimson] articles, there were meetings practically every day. Now they are every week," kitchen receiver Kennedy says. "At first there were too many of them--we weren't getting production done."