Another Successful Graduation
Hospitality International Training now includes Line Cook and Desserts and Pastries programs. We serve the general population at our 950 E. Sahara Avenue site in Las Vegas, but also work with targeted populations including incarcerated youth and adults. We recently had a most successful graduation ceremony at Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center. The class of 15 student inmates worked long and hard to earn their Line Cook and Serve Safe certification. Each class member is on track for release soon. HIT will help them with placement services. If past is prologue, most of the graduates will be successful finding work in the food industry and will not reoffend. The Line Cook curriculum completed by the fifteen honors graduates is a rigorous six-week intensive program that includes both in-depth study and hands-on kitchen laboratory experience. Topics cover segments such as basics, eggs, fats, diaries, mixing and storage, cross contamination, safety, and a host of others topics. Serve Safe is a national certification the food industry. Chefs who hold Serve Safe certification are highly sought after by employers. Upon graduation and release each new chef will receive a complete uniform and additional training. Graduates and guests enjoyed chicken scampi prepared by HIT chefs Chester Strohecker, Gerald Ward, Lyndal Shirley, and Stephanie Thomas. Desserts included cookies and cupcakes prepared by student inmates at the Spring Mountain Youth Camp who had just completed the HIT Deserts and Pastries class. All cooking and baking is done under the direct supervision of qualified chefs. Dinner dessert was followed by recognition of HIT co-founders Dr. Lonnie G. Wright and Sherrie Wright, and a hearty congratulations to the graduating class by Warden Jo Gentry and Assistant Warden Gabriela Garcia. Internationally acclaimed speaker and author of the best seller, “Guilty, The Inside Truth,” Bonita Fahy shared her experience of having been falsely accused and convicted of a murder she did not commit. After serving several years in a Wisconsin prison, the mistake was finally corrected and she was released. But while incarcerated she took advantage of all the opportunities available to inmates. She entered prison as a high school dropout but while doing time completed a high school diploma, bachelors and masters degrees, and is currently studying for her Doctorate. Her words were inspirational both to the graduates who will soon return to society, and to HIT staff and guests. Peter Guzman, president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and W.O.W. Director John Collins provided further words of encouragement. and urged the graduates of move forward from being wards of the state to becoming fully employed taxpayers. Festivities were concluded with award winning actor, director, and community activist, Antonio Fargas offering graduates heart rendering examples from his own life and struggles, and how those experiences helped him prepare for his many roles. Hospitality International Training continues with its mission of providing an offramp to youthful offenders who are on the highway to recidivism, and moving incarcerated adults from dependency on community resources to successful taxpayers. Our program is not restricted to the incarcerated, however. The same high quality instruction is available to the general public. For further information, contact our office at (702) 656-7764 or email Doc@HIT.academy
Chef Outreach Training
Our founder, Professor Lonnie G. Wright has extended HIT training into the community and created partnerships with many community agencies to offer a “hand up, not a handout” to people who need a second chance for success in life. His vision has reached students who are looking to enter the hospitality industry through the culinary doorway and HIT will soon expand to provide training in other areas including technology as well as the trades. One group of people in desperate need of training are those in the correctional system. In the state of Nevada some 5,000 people move through the system each year. More than 90% of those incarcerated will be released and will return to the community. It is crucial to provide life skills and job training to help turn them from being wards of the state to taxpayers. To that end, Professor Wright has established partnerships with the Department of Corrections that allow our programs to be taught inside the walls of correctional facilities. The result has been a myriad of parolees who have completed our program and enjoyed the success working in the food preparation industry. Many have moved into responsible positions and supervise other employees, manage food and liquor purchases, and establish a life that some thought they would never achieve. We have documented some of those success stories in this space and will continue to do so. Let’s look at the other people who make these success stories possible. HIT employs chefs to train the students as well as experts from the field of Human Resources to demonstrate and teach not only food preparation skills, but appropriate behavior that lends itself to success in all human contact. Items such as arriving on time or earlier and staying later if required are discussed. How to address colleagues and clients, and general deportment and issues that can make the difference between success and failure in a business setting are included. Even the chefs and others who teach and tutor students are permitted to go into the correctional facilities they must successfully complete program training provided by the Department of Corrections. The half-day seminar covers training to help understand the population they are dealing with and helps the chefs and teachers to be most effective while teaching. Given the qualifications and qualities of the founder and Executive Director, and the team he has assembled, Hospitality International Training Academy will continue to serve the needs of those who require a hand up, not a handout. Our motto is, “When academics interfaces with business, both entities are enriched.”
We Are Family
As Sister Sledge said in the “We Are Family” song, “Living life is fun and we’ve just begun…” At Hospitality International Training Academy (HIT) we are living life and having fun. The word is spreading and an unprecedented number of students are going through our classes and beginning successful careers in the culinary field. We have been invited by several agencies to train their charges and giving them skills that will redirect their lives from being wards of the state to being taxpayers. Not all of our graduates have had life struggles, but many have. We work with juveniles as well as adults. Many of the juveniles are minor offenders but who hare headed down the highway toward the adult penal system. By providing them with skills and opportunities to use those skills upon graduation, we offer them an off-ramp from that highway. In today’s society, people who struggle with issues are often knocked down by the challenges in life. Our mantra is, “It is no sin to be knocked down. It is only a sin to not get back up.” Our program provides youthful offenders as well as adult offenders an opportunity to get back up. Our outstanding cadre of faculty teaches their charges the finer points of the courses taken, but we don’t stop there. We bring in experts in the field of Human Resources to discuss character, perception, and rules that, when properly applied, give them an opportunity to succeed in the workplace. We give them the mechanical skills as well as demonstrating the people skills needed to become successful in their profession and in life. The results are gratifying. Our graduates leave the program with a certificate that speaks to their ability to do a job, and upwards of 90% also complete a national certification in the food business, thereby enhancing their opportunities for a career in the culinary arts. We consider our students, teaching staff, and administrative personnel, as well as our advisors, to be part of the HIT family. Join our family and increase your opportunity for success.
Success Stories
International Training has had many success stories among its graduates. One that comes to mind is that of a woman who had some challenges in her life. She lived in the Deep South. Her academic skills were outstanding but she did not see a future in her home environment, so she joined the military. Once she enlisted it became clear that she had leadership skills and she did very well in the service to her country. When her stint was up she was discharged in her home environment and found her way to Las Vegas. Without the daily regimen of the military, and because of some of her military experiences, life began to unravel and spun out of control. She found herself homeless then living in a women’s shelter. At this, the lowest point in her life, she found her way to the Hospitality International Training Academy where, with the help of a community partner, she enrolled in the Line Cook program. Her leadership and discipline that she brought from the military began to shine and she quickly became a star student in the class, earning the H.I.T. Line Cook Certification as well as the coveted ServSafe certification. The latter is a national certification that many kitchens require for their shift leaders. In fact, some kitchen policies require that at lease one ServSafe Certified chef be on duty whenever the kitchen is open. This H.I.T. graduate was immediately snatched up by one of the H.I.T. community partners and quickly was promoted. She left that position for another and was eventually placed in a position of utmost responsibility in the kitchen at the Veterans Hospital. This is but one of the many success stories that we will share in this space.
The Road to Perdition
Some twenty years ago Lonnie Wright saw a problem in his hometown. Wright was raised in Las Vegas, graduated from a local high school and was a basketball star at UNLV. He completed his degree in Business and Hotel Management and went into the world of work. As a young man he saw several inequities in his community, one of which was athletes who did not complete their college degrees. He began raising funds to help those who had completed their athletic eligibility but not their degree to complete their education. Mr. Wright continued to see areas of inequity in his hometown and addressed many of them. One such issue was the problem of too many young people who rode the highway to incarceration, the Road to Perdition. He discovered that nearly 97% of inmates would be released at some point and the rate of recidivism was too high. One reason was that young people often left prison with the same lack of marketable skills that helped put them there. With the help of Chef Bo Hampton, Lonnie Wright had a curriculum designed that would provide marketable skills to allow them an off ramp from the highway to recidivism. He envisioned those wards of the state becoming taxpayers and assets to his community. Sixty-five graduates of that program left with skills to change their lives. But he soon learned that was not enough. Even though parolees had marketable skills, most places of business would not hire them because of their records, so he went on a campaign, contacting his former colleagues, employers and friends in what Lonnie likes to call, “Las Vegas, the biggest food industry in the world.” He had community agencies agree to sponsor young people’s training, then made the employers community partners who were willing take a chance on parolees who had the means and desire to become upstanding taxpaying members of the community. From the seeds of that experience Lonnie Wright, with the help of his wife Sherrie, a food services professional for over three decades, and Chef Bo Hampton started Hospitality International Academy. The curriculum was expanded and the vision is to eventually offer a two-year degree-granting poly-technical college. It has been a tremendous success. Hospitality International Training and its staff are fully certified by the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education and are continually engaging the staff and refining the curriculum. We have classes being taught at several correctional sites as well as our campus at 950 E. Sahara Avenue.
What Makes HIT Special?
It is no accident that our acronym spells HIT. The dictionary definition of this three-letter word is: “… to come into contact with something stationary quickly and forcefully.” Over the years we have observed young people fall into the adult criminal justice system and begin a downward spiral that takes them deeper into the system. The incarceration rate in this country is the highest in the world and the recidivism rate predicts that the vast majority will re-offend upon leaving the system. When an individual enters the system it not only penalizes that person, but his family, loved ones, and taxpayers who untimely pay to house and feed the inmate. We believe that there are deserving young men and women who, with the appropriate job training and interpersonal relations skills, and with the likelihood of a job upon their release, can transition from being a ward of the state to becoming a contributing, taxpaying part of society. Hospitality International Training proposes a plan to teach job skills to enter into the culinary business, a field that employs the largest single component of (demand)workers in our community and offers a huge demand for certificated individuals. We will pre-screen participants who have been identified by prison officials as prospects for our program, and offer our Line Cook Program to them. The Line Cook Program is a 90-hour, hands-on course taught by professionals in the culinary field. The course is certified by the Nevada Commission on Post-secondary Education and offers those who successfully complete it a certificate of completion and an opportunity to earn a national ServSafe certification. Our graduates are given a second chance and become assets to their employers.