Corporate Culinary Arts to Prep Industry Workers

Chef Lou Rice has cranked up the heat.

The executive chef in residence and leader of NorthWest Arkansas Community College’s new culinary arts and hospitality department under its corporate learning division, Rice has his sights set on refining the regional palate – one student at a time.

NWACC has a for-credit culinary program in which about 120 students are seeking degrees, but Rice’s program is not-for-credit, targeting professionals working in the hospitality industry, teams looking for experiential learning and, to some extent, foodies who just want to up their cuisine game at home.

The degree-seeking culinary courses are taught at the NWA Non-Profit Center in Rogers. That program will graduate its first class this year.

The college’s hospitality corporate learning offerings are only about seven months old, the kitchen officially opened when the 40,000-SF Shewmaker Center for Global Business Development was finished, but Rice said he’s already taught about 300 students in personal enrichment programs. He’s had about the same number of corporate students through various training classes.

Becky Paneitz, president of NWACC, said the program was born out of a need for short-term workforce education.

The Basore family donated an undisclosed amount and Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale donated $150,000 toward the creation of the corporate program and for the construction of the state-of-the-art kitchen, dubbed the Tyson Foods Culinary Learning Center.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated in May 2009 more than 95,000 Arkansans are employed in the food preparation and serving industry. More than 16,000 of those are employed in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area. Though foodservice wages are typically low, if BLS estimates are in the ballpark, about $295 million is earned by workers in Northwest Arkansas each year. One way to raise that number is through continuing education and training.

“I don’t think any of us dreamt of the need and interest [there has been] in the culinary program,” Paneitz said. “I need to clone chefs!”

 

Boiling Point

Rice spent several years selling insurance, but the industry didn’t melt his butter. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, an associate’s degree in culinary arts and hospitality. He eventually earned a master’s in family consumer science.

He’s taught catering classes at Ball State University, run his own catering business and owned a restaurant that “went down in flames.”

Rice landed a job at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Mo., where he served as the division chair of the culinary arts and hospitality program for about six years, then moved to NWACC to teach the for-credit culinary program about two-and-a-half years ago. He was asked to head up the non-credit corporate program this year.

“Everybody’s got a ‘Come learn how to make a cake’ kind of thing,” Rice said. “But we’re taking this to the next level – several levels – with actively going out to the businesses and trying to help them with their training needs in the hospitality industry.”

Rice’s experience with degreed programs is they don’t necessarily help people who are active in the industry.

“Here, we can concentrate our efforts on those who are in the industry and help them become better professionals,” he said.

Brenda Anderson, who works with Community Development Corp. of Bentonville, which operates the Legacy Village Greenhouse Assisted Living, had NWACC and Rice train and about 15 employees who prepare meals for clients.

“There are other folks that do that type of training, but NWACC had a comprehensive training and the ability to customize it,” Anderson said. “They left us with great resources that our employees use now on a daily basis and they really instilled in them a sense of confidence.”

The average person in the industry can’t take the time to go back to school, Rice said, so NWACC’s program will help raise the bar for those workers and restaurant owners that can spare just a little time here and there.

“I think that can be one of our greatest contributions to the area business community is by helping employers develop the staff that will get the job done for them, ” he said.

“The hospitality business is on-the-job training – 99.9 percent of the time. Why do we have 100 percent turnover most places?” Rice said. “They bring somebody in [and say], ‘You ever made a salad before? There’s the menu.’ And then they wonder why people fail.”

Restaurateurs say they don’t have time to train employees and so it becomes a vicious cycle, he said. The new program allows managers to customize training.

“You give us your menu, you give us your parameters, we can set up a training course here,” Rice said. “We can have an exit exam where the employer comes in and grades it.

“No muss, no fuss, no wasted food. No unhappy customers. It’s a win-win.”

 

Menu Options

In addition to customized employee training, the culinary arts program offers a cornucopia of personal enrichment classes – everything from Culinary Boot Camp to Knife Skills 101 to After School Baking for Kids. Most are limited-availability half-day or full-day courses.

But a relatively new concept is simmering, too. Rice is using his kitchen as a team-building arena. Think ropes course without the ropes.

Think too many cooks in one kitchen, all learning how to work together.

“He uses food to demonstrate different team work and project management … and learning skills,” said Wyley Elliot, NWACC’s vice president for external affairs.

Paneitz said she’s so impressed by the team building exercises, she wants to take her leadership team through it.

NWACC has also gotten into the catering business for its corporate clients and is actively marketing to others. Rice recently used the kitchen to cater three events in one day and hopes to expand that business for the school. He’s already done everything from 8-course meals featuring duck to box lunches.

 

Dining Experience

A July 2010 report compiled by the BLS estimated households in 2007 spent an average of $2,668 per year on food prepared away from home. That number is flat from 2005.

Rice is sure Northwest Arkansas will get a boost in the restaurant business in the future.

“With Crystal Bridges coming in, with the new 21C Hotel, I think you’re going to once again see an influx of savvy, world-traveling people who are going to expect a little bit more of their dining experience, from a service aspect and also a food aspect,” Rice said.

He’s aware of at least four groups looking at opening more upscale restaurants offerings.  But he has some advice he likes to relate to new operators when he can: “The No. 1 rule, figure out what your client wants. Two: figure out a way to make money given what the client wants.”

 “This was a little farming community,” he said of his down in flames restaurant. “They called us ‘those creepy French boys.’ They hated us.

“It was all about us, us, us and me. I never once stopped to think ‘this place has been in this little town for 20 years.’ We completely destroyed their gathering place because we thought that we knew what they were going to eat.

“And that’s a mistake that people make in this business. It’s not about me and my needs here,” he said. “It’s about what I can do for the customer.”  

 

 

NWACC’s Offerings

NorthWest Arkansas Community College’s Shewmaker Center for Workforce Technologies offers six different departments designed for continuing education to Northwest Arkansas’ workforce:

• Building Sciences – Courses in heating, ventilation and air conditioning, electrical and plumbing includes weatherization and energy efficiency classes.
• Business & Industry – Customized business training and curriculum for almost any industry.
• Institute for Corporate and Public Safety – An education, training and research institute that prepares both the public and private sectors for best practices for a crisis event.
• Professional Development – Open enrollment with courses designed to increase an individual’s skills in everything from accounting to Web technology.
• Retail & Supplier Education – A comprehensive one-year certificate program that trains individuals to become certified retail analysts.

Classes in all the programs do not count toward a degree, but many are certificate courses. Wyley Elliot, vice president for external affairs, said enrollment numbers are hard to come by because many of the courses are one-time only or customized, but the college estimates corporate learning “touches” about 4,000 people per year, though some of those may be counted twice.

Elliott said a count for NWACC’s first quarter, which began July 1, indicates about 1,000 people have attended some form of corporate learning.

– Worth Sparkman