Georgia Food Industry Association awards scholarship to CSH student

Will Howard, a Culinary Sustainability and Hospitality major, is the recipient of the Georgia Food Industry Association (GFIA) scholarship award

 

Each year GFIA accepts scholarship applications from Jan. 1 through March 1 and awards scholarships to students attending college or a vocational/trade school.  The Association typically awards over 100 scholarships annually, ranging from $500 to $4,000 per student.

 

The good news just kept on coming for Howard. He also received notification of his acceptance into a summer program at the Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne Summer Academy offers a seven-day program designed to develop knowledge of hospitality through a mix of practical and theoretical activities.

 

An employee of Kyma, a high-end Mediterranean Atlanta-based concept restaurant, Howard is thankful that he was able to meet the restaurant's owner, Niko Karatassos during a CSH Intro class lecture. “I simply walked up to him after class expressing my interest in working for their company.  He told me that he would get in touch with his brother, Pano Karatassos, Jr., and I got a phone call about an hour later from Pano himself.  He told me to come in the next day.  During that meeting, he walked me around the kitchen and front of the house and told me of how [I] impressed his brother, and anyone that can do that has a position in [his] restaurant.  At the time, I thought it was a great opportunity, but now I realize that it was near impossible to do what I did.  It is a hard process to even estage in the restaurant,” said Howard.

 

Howard’s initial position at Kyma was a Garmache chef.  Since then, he has worked his way into the hot appetizers lead where he is in charge of four people serving all of the hot and cold appetizers.