Business Wire, October 12, 2006, Thursday

Business Wire
October 12, 2006 07:00 AM Eastern Time

The Pantry Names Melissa Anderson Senior Vice President – Human Resources
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20061012005114&newsLang=en

SANFORD, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Pantry, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTRY), the leading independently operated convenience store chain in the southeastern U.S., today announced that it has named Melissa Anderson, to the newly created position of Senior Vice President – Human Resources.
Ms. Anderson joins The Pantry from International Business Machines Corp., where she progressed through a variety of increasingly challenging human resources positions during her remarkable 17-year career. For the last three years, she was the vice president of Human Resources for IBM Global Financing. While there, she lead an international team of HR professionals responsible for creating and executing a worldwide workforce management strategy for an organization of approximately 3,500 employees. Ms. Anderson previously led IBM’s human resource functions for several other U.S. locations including IBM’s Silicon Valley Software Development Laboratory and IBM Austin, former headquarters to IBM’s RS6000 Server Division, now branded as Series P. The Austin site was home to approximately 4,500 employees with over 30 distinct lines of business. Subsequently, Ms. Anderson became the worldwide HR director for Tivoli Software. Earlier in her career, she managed IBM’s pioneering effort to create a human resources “shared-services” center, centralizing HR services for over 200,000 employees and retirees. Ms. Anderson earned her B.S. degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and holds a Master of Industrial and Labor Relations degree from Cornell University.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Peter J. Sodini said, “We are delighted to welcome Melissa to The Pantry’s senior management team. As we have in several other areas over the last 18 months, we felt we needed to upgrade our human resources capabilities by adding an executive whose talents are commensurate with the scope and importance of the function – particularly in light of the growth we expect over the next few years. Melissa’s track record of superb performance and innovation at IBM made her an ideal candidate for this position.”

About The Pantry
Headquartered in Sanford, North Carolina, The Pantry, Inc. is the leading independently operated convenience store chain in the southeastern United States and one of the largest independently operated convenience store chains in the country, with net sales for fiscal 2005 of approximately $4.4 billion. As of June 29, 2006, the Company operated 1,499 stores in eleven states under select banners including Kangaroo Express(SM), our primary operating banner. The Pantry’s stores offer a broad selection of merchandise, as well as gasoline and other ancillary services designed to appeal to the convenience needs of its customers.