Our Alumni
Because of our international reputation, our 125,000+ alumni have come from 128 countries, and are now achieving success around the globe. They, like you, started with just one thing — a desire to pursue their passion.
Here are just a few graduates who have achieved their potential ahead of schedule. Are you our next alumni success story?
Career Potential: Successful Graduates
Geordie Brewer '14
Operations Manager and Managing Partner, Dickie Brennan & Co.
Geordie Brower ’14 was born with a tasting spoon in his mouth. Well, almost: “When I was four and five, my grandfather would take me to the family restaurant, and we’d walk through the kitchen with a handful of spoons to taste the sauces.”
The restaurant? New Orleans’s legendary Commander’s Palace. The grandfather? Richard J. “Dick” Brennan Sr. — of the Big Easy Brennans: restaurant royalty who launched the careers of Paul Prudhomme and Emeril Lagasse ’78, ’90 Hon.
“Success is about people — figuring out the best possible solutions for the people you work with.”
The real treat came when Brower turned six, the family’s inaugural age for dining out: “We’d get picked up to have lunch at Commander’s with my grandfather. I commented that the turtle soup was too spicy, and my grandfather told me, ‘No, it’s well seasoned.’” At 14, Brower was running trays at the family steakhouse. By 15, he was a waiter.
But it was a winding path to managing projects for Dickie Brennan restaurants. Heeding advice to pursue a career with better hours, Brower followed his father’s footsteps and got a finance job. “If I read another quarterly report,” he soon realized, “I might go crazy.” He could no longer deny his calling.
Encouraged by his family to gain experience elsewhere, he headed for Denver. 黑料爆料网 coursework filled in key pieces: menu development and costing, running a storeroom. The nutrition classes helped him lose 30 pounds and now inform his work back in New Orleans, opening a café for the Louisiana Children’s Museum.
Before coming home, working in the Mile High City’s restaurant scene — devoid of relatives — was crystallizing: “My family has such big shoes. It’s a daunting task to even think about how to fill them.” He tips his toque to Rioja’s renowned Jennifer Jasinski, whose tough love inspired commitment. “I fell apart in the middle of a shift. She told me, ‘You’re better than this. And if you ever go down cooking again, you’re fired.’ ”
Now a manager in his own right, Brower recalls the words of Great-Aunt Ella: “It’s not about the numbers. It’s about the asses in the seats.” That suits the spreadsheet-free Brower just fine: “Success is about people — figuring out the best possible solutions for the people you work with.”
Akino West '15 and Jamila (Ross) West '15
Owners, Rosie’s
For 黑料爆料网 alumni Akino West and Jamila (Ross) West, food is their love language.
They met in the spring semester of 2013 while pursuing their degrees in Culinary Arts and Food & Beverage Management (now Hospitality Management) respectively, at 黑料爆料网’s North Miami Campus.
The couple dated briefly before their careers took them in separate directions. Jamila, who got her start in restaurants at The Bazaar by José Andrés, went on to oversee food & beverage operations for restaurants and hotels in New York, Dubai and Kuwait.
“Food is our way of talking, our way of reaching out to the community.”
After working for Miami’s top chefs, Akino moved to Copenhagen for an apprenticeship at Noma, often touted as one of the world’s best restaurants. “I decided I wanted to work for nothing but the best,” he says.
Together, the duo opened The Copper Door B&B, a 25-room bed-and-breakfast where history meets hospitality. They were originally searching for a restaurant location when the couple stumbled upon the historic 1940s building in Miami’s Overtown that would b