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Chef Neil Ravenna looks to transform Pathways’ dining services. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Pathways new kitchen manager brings education, experience WEST ASHVILLE’S LARGEST OPEN AIR MUSIC & FOOD VENUE
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BY CORY VAILLANCOURT POLITICS E DITOR aywood Pathways Center’s mission has always been to help people from all walks of life get back on their feet, but now for the first time in the organization’s six-year history, it’s taking a bold step into the world of workforce development that could also help alleviate staffing shortages in the region’s hospitality sector. The man they’ve chosen for the job seems to have the right skills, on both sides of the line. “I grew up with two brothers, and my parents owned a foster home for at-risk kids. So there were 18 other kids and then my two brothers and myself,” said Neil Ravenna. “At a very young age, we had instilled in us a sense of compassion.” Originally from Vermont, Ravenna has been involved in the gastronomic world since his first day in high school; he entered a vocational program helmed by a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, and spent the next four years perfecting his chops. Upon graduation at age 17, Ravenna entered the culinary program at Paul Smith’s College in Saranac Lake, New York. “It’s right adjacent to Lake Placid, New
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York, and the Olympics were there in 1980. I graduated high school in 1981 so then the following spring there was still a buzz in the town,” he said. “We used a lot of the facilities that were built for the Olympics. It was pretty cool being up there.” By age 19 he was working in restaurants in Burlington and Rutland, Vermont and a decade later found himself employed by a Tampa resort. He ended up in Tuscaloosa in 1996, where he served as the executive chef at the University of Alabama. “I was at this antebellum home called the University Club, which sits right on the campus,” he said. “Two-story, fine dining, seven dining rooms, full kitchen. We did weddings — two weddings every Saturday. It’s where the dignitaries and everything would come, and it used to be the governor’s mansion when Tuscaloosa was the capital of Alabama.” While at Alabama, Ravenna began teaching at Shelton State Community College, where he was asked to write a full curriculum for a culinary arts degree program. Once it was approved by the state, Ravenna became the director of the program. “That was an associate of arts degree program, but they also had a certificate program that took folks who were on public assistance, who needed a lift up, who needed a hand, and taught them a trade so that they could get off of public assistance and out into the workforce,” he said. One of Ravenna’s tasks was to assess what skills area employers were looking for, so he
checked in with 250 restaurants in the fivecounty Tuscaloosa area. “It was basic culinary arts where you could go to an entry-level position in the kitchen. The real things are the simplest things that you would take for granted in the kitchen — your knife skills, what knives to use, what knives not to use on certain tasks, all of your food sanitation and safety issues,” he said. “Everybody that left both programs were ServSafe certified.” ServSafe is an educational program offered by the National Restaurant Association that teaches food safety to restaurant workers. “That was great,” he said, “because in that state you had to have ServSafe certification in the kitchen.” Ravenna said he saw real results, and lives changed, because the training at Shelton State gave participants skills that would make them more employable. “The best example is a young lady, she was actually in the certificate program,” he said. “She had two children. She came in, got her certificate and went to work at a Salvation Army running their soup kitchen and she did it for years and years and years. Both programs are still up and running and they’ve even built big teaching kitchens and everything. I was there at the beginning when we were working out of classrooms with hot plates.” Eventually Ravenna moved back to Tampa and accepted a position as a personal chef for
