why a chef?
it's just
it's in your blood
once you've got the passion
or we call it the juice
uh... it's hard to give up it's hard to
give up
our Culinary Arts apprenticeship program
is in fact a degreed program
as well as a journeyman status
on-the-job training program
uh... the program is a sixty two
credit program
students work six thousand hours
on the on-the-job training
in nine areas of concentration
everything from stewarting and washing dishes
all the way up to being leads to Sous chef
so by the time they graduate they are
Sous chef status
or second-in-command journeyman cooks
we have over a hundred and thirty students
apprentices
then we have about seventy
sponsoring houses within ninety mile
radius
where we differ from the 
traditional culinary school is
our students come one day a week
for theory and their labs
te rest of the time
they're actually working 
with 
journeyman chefs and executive chefs
honing their skill
uh... culinary schools
lots of students go five days a
week and they have classes and they take
their labs
we throw our students to the wolves
right off the bat
our students are geared towards the
hands-on learning and they get it, they get it
our instructors are all industry people
uh... who come to
class
and teach a class one day a week
and the rest of the time they are
actually out in the industry
uh... training their people 
and running a business
apprenticeship is earn while you learn
they are actually paid a wage
while they ...uh ... while they train
so when they, when they graduate they
have a journeyman an associates degree
and they're ready to go
an executive chef that's
interviewing and hiring
would much rather have someone
who was has been in the field 
knows the equipment
knows the sense of urgency
verses someone
comes out with book smart
your can't teach urgency
in the classroom
these students have to get out there in
the industry
and work it
our students are actually hired
by the time they were in their third
year
they actually have been recruited by any
number of
houses
uh... before they even graduate
we have about ninety eight percent
placement
uh... students take everything from
nutrition, to
purchasing, to
culinary accounting
and the lab classes, is exactly
that its hands on
they're fabricating fish
they're doing classical knife cuts
they're doing classical
sauces
uh... we have students that are
traditional students write out a high
school
we have
mid twenties i even have a couple in
their sixties that are changing careers
it's a creative field
but most of it at the beginning
as far as apprenticeship is learning the
fundamentals and, and honing your skills
really
from a classical knofe cut to a classical
sauce
and developing a pallet
so that some day you can in fact create
your own, you do have to be a technician
as well as an artist
in this field
we are in a
two point three million dollar culinary
training center
uh... that was built
in the spring of two thousand eleven
our students now come
and spend the entire day on one side of
the hallway we have our theory classes
on the other side we have our labs
both baking
and savory
and students actually spent the entire
day here
bring their lunch or cook
their lunch
and uh... I couldn't
ask for anything nicer than
what I have 
we are state of the art
students will get their own workstation
uh... but they have the ability to look
up
uh... at the chef's table and watch chef
fifty-two inch screens
either at the screen or directly at
the chef himself
so there's no way to miss it
the cool thing is this
we have the capabilities of
taping vignettes from the chef's demo
that the student can then go
back
and review that demo
so not a lot of places can do that
uh... and
that's very cool
uh... we have state of the art stuff we
have stone ovens
uh... for stone work we have rationale
ovens that cook nine different ways
we have conventional ovens, convectional
ovens
sautee stations, fry stations
it's our job
here at the training center
to get the students comfortable with
every piece of equipment
that's being utilized in the industry
not every house has a buffalo chopper
you know, but we have one
we want them qualified
on these pieces of equipment
so if they end up in a house
that has those pieces of equipment
they're comfortable in using them
we're making journeyman chef
capable of going anywhere in the
United States within a matter of days
be able to throw down with best of them
