Hospitality and culinary have been a program at Johnson County Community College for 27
years.
This is a wonderful discipline teaching students skill to be become very successful in a very
demanding industry, and there’s no question that should a student to be able to make it
completely through the program that they would have a shining opportunity in front of them.
Hospitality and culinary have been taught at Johnson County Community College for 27
years started over in the old basement in the commons with 5 students and a wonderful
director named Jerry Vincent.
He was able to convince the American Culinary Federation to accredit Johnson County Community
College with a chef apprenticeship program.
It all began there, and moved forward into what we actually have today a three year chef
apprenticeship program, a two year food and beverage management degree, a two year hotel
and lodging degree, along with several certificates; such as a pastry and baking certificate, and
the dietary managers certificate.
This program has been blessed with wonderful donors lets take a minute and listen to some
of them.
We made a decision to basically make a grant to the college’s superstar which is the
culinary school.
It had gotten great press, but it can always do better and we felt that a major grant in
the direction of a challenge grant would help it to build a much greater base, and hopefully
in time go global as oppose to local or regional.
Every college has programs that they excel at that their known for, and that they have
a strong connection with, and I think that the culinary program is that program for Johnson
County Community College.
Some colleges their best program is their football team.
This is our football team this is our, this is the team; this is the piece of the college
that literally is internationally known if not nationally, nationally known if not internationally
known.
So it is such a strong program that to not support it fully, and not put all of our assets,
and all of our strength behind it to make it and allow it to be, as big, and as good,
and function, and prosperous as much as that it can is a real sin.
You know you continue to read about the great things that the culinary school has done here,
and all the great awards they’ve won, and we felt that because food is something that
were involved with and is something that were very passionate about.
We felt a real connection by getting involved with the culinary institute out here.
Several years ago David Wysong offered the program a sizeable donation asking that we
elevate it in prestige and recognition.
We did that by offering several programs such as, cooking with class in the children’s
garden; however, at the end of the year we haven’t used any of his donations.
David wanted to know what did we need the answer obviously was a new building a new
facility we’ve been teaching for 27 years in a very small 11 thousand square foot facility
on electric stoves.
What we really needed was a program that would match the level of skill on our grads.
So we went to the board of trustees who’s challenged the foundation to raise 3 million
dollars in 24 months, actually we raised 3.2 million dollars in a mere 18 months at that
point the board of Trustees voted to give the program the remaining amount of money
they needed, an architect was hired and away we went.
The students in the hospitality program are truly unique as far as I’m concern.
They all work in the industry; most of them work full time.
Chef apprentices are required to work 6 thousand hours under a supervising chef with the requirements
being met from the American Culinary Federation.
One of those requirements is would be that an operation has to produce 50% of its food
from scratch in order to have an ACF apprenticeship.
The food and beverage management students along with the dietary managements along with
the hotel lodging managers, also work in the industry it’s a requirement they may work
as little as 20 hours or up to full time 40 hours a week.
So if we think about this for a minute we have student s out there working full time
in a very demanding industry generally taking a full college load 15 credits, probably having
some outside requirements such as family, or a significant other, or some other obligation
and they still manage to make it through.
I have to tell you those are really good students.
Why don’t we take a minute to listen to what some of our grads have to say.
Hello I’m Leslie Stockard I’m the owner of the Classic Cookie and Cafe.
I’ve had the restaurant for 15 years.
I am a graduate of the culinary program out at Johnson County.
My name is Stephanie Hurla, and I’m the director of hotel operations with Ameristar
casino the hospitality program had just begun when I was graduating from high school so
it was a perfect choice it was actually a no-brainer for me.
My name is Will Norm and I’m the executive chef at Hollbrook Country Club I learned about
the hospitality at Johnson County Community College from my brother he went to the hospitality
management program, and I was thumbing through some of his books one day, and I realize that
I already knew a lot of the stuff in there.
I get a certain gratification out of pleasing other people that’s when I decided I wanted
to become a chef.
I didn’t really feel like they could teach me anything about cooking, and boy did they
open my eyes, because I felt like a fish out of water when I got there.
I learned wonderful knife skills I learned how to work with other people in a stressful
environment, and also not a stressful environment I learned about the hospitality side of my
job I learned how to do purchasing how to keep my books just pretty much general business
skills.
I can remember Chef Sweeney saying “time is money time is money” everything had to
be organized in the kitchen everything had to be clean so that way you could pull out
a pan, and it would be just as good as new.
I ate caviar for the first time in the program I went to the McCormick food show out in Chicago
at the McCormick place out in Chicago, and that was an experience all in its own.
Las Vegas I got to tour the MGM Grand I got to take a tour UNLB campus.
The memories are endless, because there are certain things that I’ll still recall to
this day that will pop-up because of my time in the program with Johnson County Community
College.
I did my apprenticeship here a Holbrook Country Club, and graduate in 2003.
Became the sous-chef, and was later on hired back here as the executive chef here.
One of my fondest memories from Johnson County Community College was winning the national
championship in Las Vegas in 2002 with a competitive culinary team.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned at Johnson County Community College was persistence
through the culinary team, and training there every Saturday morning for 8 hours at a time
just persistence, and perseverance will really make you a great chef.
The program at Johnson County Community College has worked very hard to develop an outstanding
national reputation.
At this point were also working on an outstanding international reputation.
There’s no question that in Johnson County alone, if you ask somebody about Johnson County
Community College one of the first things that comes to mind is there chef apprenticeships.
They’ll say oh yes I know so and so who works at such and such and is part of the
chef apprenticeship program.
You can go out to many of the employers, country clubs, restaurants, hotels throughout the
community throughout the metro area actually, and generally you’ll run into one of our
students.
If a student is looking to gain a very thorough knowledge of the hospitality industry in order
to develop the skills that they need to succeed in our industry.
There is no question that Johnson County Community College would be one of the first choices.
Along with being the first choices we have this wonderful new state of the art facility
that actually wows you when you walk into it, and you start looking into the different
opportunities that are available a garde manger lab, a bake shop, an innovation kitchen.
One of the most important things is that students actually now have a computer lab where they
actually practice the computer skills their learning in accounting, or the design skill
that they are learning in our design course on the computers, and gain a skill that normally
you wouldn’t gain until you are out in employment.
The building itself is a 36 thousand square foot free standing facility.
There are 5 culinary labs, 2 professional cooking 1 and 2 labs garde manger kitchen,
one bake shop, one restaurant kitchen, one dining room, a culinary theatre, and an innovation
kitchen.
Also there are three classrooms.
One of the most important things is that all of the classrooms whether they be a culinary
lab, or a classroom, have technology.
The instructor can go into the classroom and use the power points that go along with the
lecture.
They can go out and pull in things such as the beef chart from the national beef association.
They have new wonderful technology in the classroom that actually enhances the lecture.
As we look into the future there are several things we have to think of, the hospitality
industry is just going to continue to grow and require more skilled employees.
Along with that, more skilled managers, more operation and entrepreneur operation owners,
there is no question that this program; this discipline cannot be downsized or offshored.
So as we look to the future we realize the food network has created a wonderful opportunity,
they now highlight the careers available in the hospitality industry that many are looking
at where in the past, they would not have considered.
Another part of looking into the future for this program is becoming a recognized World
Association of Chefs Society program.
We’re in the process of doing the paperwork for this recognition, and once we receive
it we will be one of 35 throughout the world that is a WACs recognized program.
Certainly that will make a difference to our graduates because they then will have an associates
applied science degree along with American Culinary Confederation Certification, and
the WAC’s certification.