John Head, professor, hospitality management, has done an about-face - from U.S. Army officer to award-winning chef.

Being a chef is a second career for Head, who retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1992. During a 25-year military career, Head served in three combat zones - as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and as a staff officer and commander in Korea and the Persian Gulf, where he served under General Norman Schwarzkopf.

Head, who moved his family 14 times in 25 years, collected cookbooks, cooking techniques and recipes as he traveled the world with assignments in the Middle East, Europe, Southwest Asia and throughout the United States. His last assignment was at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth. At retirement, Head did some serious introspection about a new career. With degrees in systems management and journalism, Head had options. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare Course, Quantico, Va., and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Head had considered law school after receiving high marks on his law school entry exams.

"But I always loved cooking and was a serious amateur," Head said.

Head debated between the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N.Y., and JCCC. He considered JCCC the better choice because it's one of the few hospitality management programs that combines teaching with an apprenticeship program. Head signed on for the full three-year program to earn the 74 credit-hour associate degree as a chef apprentice.

"My chef wanted me to start at the lowest possible position, washing pots. It's an initiation rite," Head said.

He graduated from JCCC's hospitality management program in 1995 and then worked in the industry as sous chef at the Adam's Mark Hotel, 1996-1997, and the banquet chef, Westin Crown Center Hotel, 1997-1999, both in Kansas City, Mo. He returned to JCCC in 1999 to instruct students in culinary arts and hospitality management. In 2004 he was named Chef of the Year by the Greater Kansas City Chefs Association.

"I teach what I love to do," Head said. "I get to see students who don't know a pot from a pan turn into very accomplished chefs."

And in a way, his culinary career is not so very different from his military one.

"A kitchen is a well-disciplined, organized brigade," Head said. "The kitchen has the same work ethic and fast-paced excitement of a military assignment. I've relished every minute of my new career."