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MOD Pizza makes key hires in construction, store design

Mike Hilgers will join MOD Pizza as vice president of design and construction, and Darren Medina will serve as vice president of store design.

September 24, 2015

MOD Pizza today announced it has added two vice presidents to support the company’s expansion across the U.S. Mike Hilgers will join MOD as vice president of design and construction and Darren Medina as vice president of store design, according to a company press release.

"MOD has always been focused on creating a series of unique stores, rather than a chain of restaurants," MOD Co-founder and CEO Scott Svenson said. "To stay true to this mission, we have attracted two outstanding individuals to lead our store design and construction teams. Together, they will ensure we execute on our aggressive store opening plans while maintaining a focus on the details that make each MOD store unique. We are thrilled to have Mike and Darren join the MOD team. Together, they possess the technical and creative experience to continue elevating the cool aesthetic for which MOD is known."

Hilgers will lead the overall design and construction efforts for all new MOD locations, the release stated. He was previously the national director of retail real estate for T-Mobile where he led all new store real estate development in the United States and Puerto Rico.

Medina will lead the team responsible for designing all new stores. He joins MOD Pizza from M3|messenger where he was the director of architecture. Prior to that, he spent 15 years at Starbucks Coffee Company as the director of global store design concepts, where he helped build the processes that enabled Starbucks to grow from under 200 stores to more than 11,500 stores, the release stated.

Seattle-based MOD Pizza has more than 70 stores in 12 states.