Sleepy Hollow High School Power Lunch

Kids’ Club is excited to continue its work with the SHHS Career Program’s Power Lunch series this year. By helping to identify and invite the speakers, and also underwriting the lunch, on October 28th Kids’ Club helped launch the first presentation of the season, which focused on careers in the food industry. 50 students, along with SHHS Principal Carol Conklin-Spillane, Guidance Department Chair David Ziegler, Career Coordinator Janet Longo-Abinanti and others, gathered in the library to graze on wraps from co-sponsor Viana Pizza and freshly picked arugula from BrightFarms, while hearing from a world-renowned chef, a dietician and an executive in the food business about their career paths.

Jonathan Wright, Executive Chef at the Rainbow Room, described his international rise to fame, starting with culinary education at a local college in rural UK.  He encouraged students interested in food preparation to consider one of the many amazing culinary institutes, such as the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York.  He shared that there will be a shortage of 200,000 chefs in NYC alone by 2025.  Chef Jonathan asked students to pay attention to the decisions they make along their career path. He started and ended with the advice to “invest in yourself,” not just in the traditional sense of monetary investment, but also in time and practice.

Paul Lightfoot, CEO of BrightFarms, started his career story with an honest disclosure – he wasn’t a good student in high school or college because of wrong priorities and poor work habits.  It was only in law school that he turned a corner and became a model student.  After that he hit the pavement with his resume in hand to drum up his first appointment at a prestigious law firm.  From there he founded and ran Foodline for 2.5 years until the stock market crashed.  He’s applied everything he learned during that experience, including the failure, to running BSG for 10 years and now BrightFarms.  Paul passionately shared his lessons learned in the form of advice: work hard, get people to believe in you, be kind, be generous, be authentic, seek expertise in the face of uncertainty, don’t be afraid to leave what’s comfortable, be willing to fail, don’t follow the herd, don’t be afraid of painful work and finally, good habits are the key to success.

Nathalie Bouthot, Senior Clinical Dietician at Phelps Memorial Hospital Center, started out by urging students not to limit themselves. Nathalie shared what it is to be a registered dietician-nutritionist, including the many areas that it covers. She shared her international path from education in Canada to consumer goods work in The Netherlands to clinical parenteral and enteral nutrition practice in a hospital setting in the United States.  Nathalie described the various paths to get certification and practice as a dietician-nutritionist.  She encouraged students to consider international experience.

 

Paul and Nathalie looked on as Chef Jonathan fielded a well-worded question about whether he was driven by work or happiness.  He responded that he was driven by his passion for food, but acknowledged that along the way he worked around the clock for many years to realize his goal.

 

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