Career Links Vol 2 No 4 February 2003

Savor the Taste of a New Career:

lindy.jpg (110 KB) Lindy Robinson

An Interview with Lindy Robinson,
Assistant Dean, Design and Hospitality

Interviewed by Kit Gorrell,
Employment Systems Technician
JCCC Career Services Center

Lindy Robinson is the assistant dean for the Hospitality Management, Fashion Merchandising and Interior Design programs at JCCC. She is an instructor, coordinator and facilitator of the Hospitality Management program here at JCCC. Lindy exhibits an unmistakable passion for food, for the science of its creation, and for the students that are in the Hospitality Management Program. For more information on this program, contact Lindy by email at lrobinsn@jccc.edu or by telephone at (913) 469-8500 Ext. 3250. Program information is also available on the Internet at http://www/home/depts/1205.

Career Services Center: When did your passion for food start? How old were you?

Lindy Robinson: I was sixteen and in high school. I went to work waiting tables in Nebraska. The chef there could tell that I wanted to know about the kitchen. This was back in the 1960’s and there weren’t a lot of females allowed in kitchens. On Saturdays, we would do the lunch rush and management would leave. I was the person who stayed to turn the dining room over to dinner. At that point the chef would let me come in the kitchen and started teaching me how to cook. I just fell in love with it and I knew that’s where I really wanted to be.

CSC: Where did your career take you after that initial experience?

LR: After my parents were transferred to Guam with the military, I remained in Nebraska, working part-time in the restaurant and full-time in the insurance industry. I knew that I still wanted to be in the food industry, but my parents told me that I had to get a ‘real’ job.

After that, I lived in New York for a number of years and had a job insuring racehorses. Because of the nature of that job, I was on call 24 hours a day. The owner of the company was extremely strict and I learned business skills from her. She had high standards and demanded perfection from me. What I learned from her about business influenced me for the rest of my life.

Years later, I moved to Kansas City, had three children, and decided I wanted to go to school. I came to JCCC when I was in my early 30’s and finally pursued my dream. I took my first course in Introduction to Baking. I was hooked and knew that’s what I wanted to do. I graduated with a Food and Beverage degree. After graduation, I immediately went into catering. I made a great deal of money for the owners of this catering company because of all the business skills I learned from my former employer in the insurance industry. I worked through the program and was employed part-time for every caterer in town. I knew catering was where I wanted to be. I found the right path and got back to the career I had always dreamed of. I worked my way up and eventually became the general manager of Bartle Hall, working between 70 and 80 hours per week. My average banquet started at 1200 people. One of the highlights in my career was doing 75,000 meals in ten days and doing it well (2500 people for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, for ten days in a row). The amount of china alone was incredible. I like logistics, I think in a logical manner, and I like challenges like that. My walk-in refrigerators wouldn’t hold the amount of food I had to have for the number of meals I was producing so I had to rent additional refrigeration space, a refrigerated truck to ensure that the food was held at the correct temperature.

One day Jerry Vincent, former JCCC Program Director of the Hospitality Management program called me and asked if I would be interested in interviewing for a teaching position. I interviewed and was hired. I stayed at JCCC for nine years and then I had the wonderful opportunity to start up a catering company for an individual. I always told my students, “When the offer that you can’t refuse comes along, if you don’t take it, you’re a fool.” He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I got to start my own catering business at his expense. I designed and built the most gorgeous catering kitchen in Kansas City. It was a wonderful experience. I got to do things I’d never done. I did this for two years until I was invited to interview for Jerry’s position when he retired. It was difficult to leave the catering business because I absolutely loved what I was doing. Catering Solutions was a dream, to be able to have your own company at somebody else’s expense. But after the interview with my peers, I knew I wanted the job.

CSC: What is your role at JCCC now?

LR: I am the assistant dean for Hospitality, Fashion and Interior Design. I handle the administrative functions of the Fashion and Interior Design programs, such as schedules, budget, requests, etc. For the Hospitality Management program, I counsel a lot of students. Before a student is accepted into the Chef Apprenticeship program, each one must visit with me or John Courtney (Hospitality Facilitator) a minimum of 3-5 times.

I’m also in constant communication with all my chefs in the community finding out if they want or need more apprentices. Also, if an employer calls and says that an apprentice hasn’t been to work in three days, I have to find out what’s going on. I have protect the relationship between my employers and apprentices because even though apprentices are employees, there is more to the employment relationship – the educational component.

CSC: Describe the degrees available to students interested in the Hospitality Management program.

LR: There are three degrees in Hospitality Management: Food and Beverage Management, Hotel/Motel Management (both two-year Associates of Applied Science degrees) and then the Chef Apprenticeship (a three-year Associates of Applied Science degree). They all have core general education classes. There are some specialties courses within each degree along with core Hospitality courses. For individuals who are interested in learning more about the program, information sessions are held weekly. These sessions are for students who are interested in applying to the program. We begin each session with an explanation of the three degrees and the direction it will take them in a career. Often times we find out that instead of being a chef apprentice and putting in 6,000 hours as an apprentice, they eventually want to be in management and we guide them in the correct direction.

CSC: How is this program different from other academic programs?

LR: We’re not like a normal academic program. Our classes meet in three-hour blocks. For an average apprentice, the day begins at 8:00 a.m. on Monday and ends at 9:30 p.m. Apprentices take 12 college credits (or four courses) in one day. They have one day off and they work an average of 55 hours a week. Because of that rigorous schedule, students are provided with a lot of guidance.

There’s a lot of math in the Hospitality Management programs. Your talent is no good if you can’t keep the door open and make money. So you’ve got to learn accounting, purchasing, inventories; you’ve got to use math. English skills are also emphasized because you’ll write reports to the owner of the company, make presentations if you’re trying to convince somebody that you want to change a menu, or post notices for employees at the time clock. If you post a note in which you have misspelled a word, you’ve lost all of your credibility with the employees.

CSC: What advice can you offer to individuals interested in a management position?

LR: When a potential student comes in for the information session, I ask them about five years from now, “Do you want to own your own restaurant? Do you want to be working as an executive chef in a hotel chain? Do you want to be in a country club as a sous chef? What are your aspirations? What do you think you want to do?” The next obvious question is, “Do you want to be the talent standing in the kitchen for twelve hours a day cooking or do you want to manage and hire the talent?” Depending on their answer, I might advise the management degree and not the chef apprenticeship program.

Also, high school students don’t always fare well in this program. You need to have really strong time management skills, organizational skills, and be very committed. It’s like joining the Culinary Marines. Are you ready to give up Friday and Saturday nights? Are you ready to give up your normal lifestyle when all your friends are out with their friends and you’re working? Your restaurant, your country club, become your extended family. Your lifestyle changes, and it’s not bad, it’s just very different. Here are some common questions I ask students:

• Have you thought about standing on your feet 10 - 12 hours a day?
• Can you lift 50 pounds by yourself?
• Have you thought about working nights and weekends?
• Have you thought about never having Mother’s Day with your mother again? There’s not a chef in town that will give you Mother’s Day off.

In the apprenticeship, this is all going to happen. That’s the hard news. The great news is, any successful chef will tell you they would make the same sacrifices again.. They love what they do. They love their career choice and they wouldn’t change it. Yes, they’d make the sacrifices. It was all worth it. But to start out, you’re going to make some big sacrifices.

CSC: What can an individual do with one of the management degrees in Hospitality Management?

LR: You could work in a restaurant, a country club, a nursing home, or a hotel or motel (such as the Fairmont, Westin, Hyatt, etc.). You could go also into restaurant or equipment sales. When I counsel potential students on the hotel degree, it’s a little different. Employers require a minimum of an Associate’s degree. If you’re taking the hotel track, you can go in with an Associate’s, but if you want to make it into mid-management or higher, you have to complete a Bachelor’s degree.

There’s a division between rooms and food and beverage in a hotel. If they were going to be on the rooms side in a hotel, they would just need the Hotel/Motel Management degree. If they were going to be on the food and beverage side, they would need both Hotel/Motel Management and Food and Beverage Management degrees.

One of the strengths of JCCC’s program, besides the apprenticeship, is that in both of these degrees, students are required to work in the industry, a minimum of 15 hours per week. We truly believe it is important to be working in the industry and making sure that this is where you want to be. That is one of the program strengths.

We also believe that you can’t be a hotel manager or a restaurant manager if you don’t have a strong foundation in cooking, so we require all of our students cook. You can’t manage a restaurant or a hotel unless you know something about food. At the same time, we talk about the management skills for the Chef Apprentices. They have to know accounting, employment law, and supervisory management. They have to have the soft skills and need to know how to communicate and get along with people. They need to know how to make an employee, after a 10-hour shift, go in and clean a walk-in refrigerator that’s totally trashed. You can’t leave it for the next shift because then you’ll start a kitchen war. So you have to learn the skills of getting an employee to do things when they are really tired and cranky and all he or she really wants to do is go home.

All of the curricula for the three degrees are purposely integrated so students can survive in different settings. They can get a hotel degree and survive in a nursing home. A hotel and nursing home are so similar you can’t believe it. Both have housekeeping, food and beverage, and recreation.

CSC: Describe a typical shift or day in the hospitality business.

LR: No day is ever the same, even when you’re at a nursing home. You’ll work long hours, working most weekends and holidays. You’re on your feet a lot. Mixed with this hard work however is the opportunity to meet many different types of people, from all over the world - all who need a hotel room, a good meal or some one of the many services the hospitality industry sales. You have the opportunity to make a difference in their day by providing service with a smile, a polite greeting or even valuable information about the city they are visiting. You have an opportunity to share in their life by being part of their special event, vacation or by simply providing “bath” (best alternative to home) food.

CSC: What tips do you have for students entering your Hospitality Management program?

LR: They need to have fairly strong time management and organization skills along with strong study skills, because there is a considerable amount of reading and math required in the program. In high school, they should work on basic math and writing skills, developing strong communication skills and gaining an understanding of the soft skills.

CSC: What personal characteristics would help a person be successful in this industry?

LR: First, you really need to like people because it’s a people industry. You need to understand the nature of providing a service, sharing food and beverage with people, being hospitable. To this day it doesn’t bother me to pour a cup of coffee in the dining room. I don’t find it demeaning. Second, you have to be a giver of sorts, be willing to give away your creations, your recipes, and your ideas. You should be a little creative. Even on the management side, you’re going to be faced with a lot of challenges that you’re going to have to figure out a creative solution. You have to be constantly thinking out of the box, even though we are very standardized. You can’t be afraid of work. – physical work. Finally, people who succeed in our industry are very passionate about food. I read cookbooks like other people read novels. Food and beverage is really an integral part of people’s everyday life. All of our society is centered on food—celebrating, Sunday dinners, family meal time, etc. Breaking bread with others does brings out the best in people.

CSC: Is there anything you'd like to add that you want potential student of the Hospitality Program to know?

LR: I want students to know that all of my colleagues in the JCCC Hospitality Management program are passionate about what they do. It's their life. They all want to help students succeed. We really care about these students--they are our future.