After 20 years in progressive leadership positions in higher education advancement on both the East and West Coasts, I left my position as an Assistant Dean at the University of California, Davis in 2014 to pursue a Degree in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America-Greystone in Saint Helena, California. I was a CIA President Scholar two years in a row and received scholarships from the National Restaurant Association and the CIA Greystone Restaurant Tips Program. I passed the Court of Master Sommeliers Introductory Sommelier Course and Examination, and graduated from the CIA in September 2015 second in my class and with two of the three graduation awards given for management and culinary achievements.Since then I have successfully transitioned my career to wine and culinary consulting. For the past 6 years, I have led efforts at Parallel Napa Valley, first as Director of Hospitality & Marketing and then 6 months later was promoted to General Manager. In 2021, I was invited by the founding partners into the partnership. I run the day-to-day operations of this 700-case Atelier Melka winery, including successfully setting and executing strategy and managing growth for all aspects of sales (both DTC and wholesale), marketing (including website, social media, email and print materials), inventory, fulfillment, compliance, customer relations, tasting room operations (including developing print materials, wine and food pairings, hosting guests and managing/training a team of On-Call Hosts), wine events, travel, financial analysis/management, annual planning, and bottling twice per year I also led the R&D culinary efforts for more than 4 years through Culinary One Partners. One of our most prominent clients, a $3B Japanese company, sought our expertise to test their technology and make connections in the US High Volume Food Service Operation Industry. We successfully proved that this one piece of commercial equipment can more rapidly and uniformly cool foods as well as more quickly brine and marinate than other equipment widely used in the marketplace. I enjoy combining as many of my passions as possible and delivering tangible results to my clients. I have a very unique skill set in which I can develop high-level, evidence-based strategies and also bring together the tools and create the techniques to execute the bigger vision down to the smallest detail. I am equally happy in a client-facing environment as I am crunching numbers for hours to assist in thoughtful strategic decision-making.
Listed skills include Writing, Team Building, Public Speaking, Non Profit Administration, and 39 others.
