Young Chefs Find Raw Deal at Trade-Tech

The problem with vocational education, says chef Giovanni J. Delrosario, can be summed up by the 15-minute roasted chicken.

The 15-minute roasted chicken is not a myth: It represents a revolution in culinary technology--the food set’s equivalent of superhighways and the World Wide Web.

But Delrosario’s students at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College won’t learn how to accomplish the feat any time soon: Trade-Tech can’t afford the $25,000, German-made ovens used to cook the bird.

State officials say the unaffordable ovens are an example of how community colleges across California are falling behind in vocational education.

The colleges play a key role in training workers in the trades--especially as trade programs in public schools have disappeared. Los Angeles community colleges enroll nearly 39,000 vocational students per year. In Los Angeles, vocational community college students outnumber those who aim to transfer to universities, said Los Angeles college officials. Statewide, well over 300,000 such students enroll in community colleges yearly.

These vocational programs provide a steady stream of workers for auto shops, machine shops, beauty parlors and police departments. Community colleges also train the majority of the state’s nurses.

But lack of funds for equipment and other expenses makes it difficult for these programs to keep up with rapid technological change in workplaces.

Vocational faculty complain that students are being trained to use equipment that is considered obsolete by employers. The problem extends far beyond fields traditionally considered high-tech, encompassing mechanics, nursing, garment-making and even cooking programs.

Equipment Is 25 Years Old

At Trade-Tech, ovens in the culinary arts program are more than 25 years old. They scorch the food, and every attempt to recalibrate them has failed.

A quick glance across the kitchen reveals a host of other problems: Grates over burners are in pieces. Saute pans are so warped they tip over unless students stand and hold them. Knobs are missing on the stove fronts. When students need to control a flame, they pull off a knob from another appliance.

“I’m in the stone age,” Delrosario laments, bringing his fist down on a worn oven for emphasis. “We are about 20 years behind the industry standard.”

Over the years, money for instructional equipment in community colleges has been allocated in fits and starts. Vocational programs must compete with libraries, science labs and computer labs on their campuses to get money, pitting the need for a new saute pan against the need for new computers or lab safety equipment.

At the same time as equipment needs at Trade-Tech have increased, leaders across many industries have been complaining of skill shortages.

Skilled tradesman--good mechanics, for example--are in such short supply that car dealerships regularly hire mechanics away from competitors to fill jobs. Hospitals in recent years have been scrambling to find skilled nurses.

And even food service industries, which still hire vast numbers of unskilled workers, put increasing value on those who complete training programs.

“We need help from the educational establishments,” said Bob Spivak, president and CEO of Grill Concepts, the chain that owns Los Angeles’ Daily Grill restaurants and The Grill on the Alley.

Spivak’s restaurants have jobs for line cooks at $10 to $15 an hour and up, and jobs for kitchen managers, assistant chefs, sous chefs and chefs, which pay anywhere from $35,000 yearly to $60,000.

His need for trained workers, especially management workers, is so acute that he has established his own private 10-day training program for employees. But the program is costly, “and this is a low margin business,” he said. “We need the professionals and educators to take over . . . what we do isn’t a substitute for a trade school.”

For community colleges, investments in vocational equipment, though, have an added element of risk because of changing labor markets and shifting technology needs in industry.

Yet not investing in vocational education carries its own risk--the risk of not giving students a chance at good jobs in growing industries. For example, in the past Saddleback College in Mission Viejo has held back on funding for such specialties as dental hygiene, audiology and steel construction because of the cost of equipment--although such programs might give many people access to good jobs, said Dixie Bullock, college president.

Making vocational programs more expensive still is that many teach hands-on disciplines that are better suited to smaller class sizes.

Nursing is among the highest-cost programs because of small class sizes. But even in cooking programs such as Delrosario’s, instructors complain that there are too many students in each class for the teachers to taste all the food they make. That means a student who overcooks the fish or adds too much salt is never the wiser.

“The issue is absolutely real,” said Victoria Morrow, state vice chancellor for educational services and economic development. “The challenge is what the right solution is.”

There are no additional operating funds now in college budgets to cover the extra costs of vocational programs. Funding is based on enrollment, so English classes are funded at the same level as cooking programs requiring food, ovens and smaller classes.

Differential funding has been proposed, but Morrow, the vice chancellor, said that such a system would be unwieldy. Overall funding for community colleges should be higher, she said.

Determination to Train Students

For now, Delrosario--”Chef Joe” to his students--is determined to put Trade-Tech on the culinary map, despite equipment problems.

A chef from the high-powered culinary world of Las Vegas hotels, Delrosario came to Trade-Tech last school year with high ambitions for the culinary program.

So far, he has had some success. The school’s mostly minority students swept the USC Culinary Classics recently, despite bent pans and treacherous ovens. They took home more medals than any school in competition, even the swank private chefs schools.

Among the competitors was Sadio Woods, 23, a Trade-Tech student and single mother living on public assistance. Woods was inspired to enter the contest after Delrosario told her: “Stick with me. Even if you don’t know anything, I will teach you,” she said.

The night before the USC contest, Woods stayed up until 2:45 a.m. making last-minute preparations. Her entry was a Jamaican-inspired meal: A jerk chicken with rice and peas, grilled chutney, spiced pork and poached red snapper wrapped in taro leaves.

Just before the judging, Woods noticed that the aspic on her plate was starting to melt, and the food she had so carefully arranged was beginning to slide. Tears of despair welled up. But in the end, her fears proved imaginary. She was awarded a bronze metal.

Now Woods says she wants to be an executive chef someday, paving the way for black women like herself to enter the highest ranks of the culinary world.

Students like her show how much is at stake, even in supposedly low-tech trades such as culinary arts, Delrosario said. Food services is an industry with abundant jobs. The National Restaurant Assn. predicts the field will add 2 million jobs in this decade.

Many of those new jobs will be relatively low paying. However Delrosario contends that with proper training, students such as Woods can make decent wages in the growing number of upper- and middle-management jobs the industry is creating along the way.

Big hotels, restaurants and corporate kitchens have high-level line cooks, chef tournants (a kind of utility player), sous chefs and executive chefs earning $25,000 a year and up, he said. Trade-Tech should focus on training students such as Woods for those jobs--not just for low-level positions, he said. With the right equipment and class sizes, “we can crank out captains of industry, not just worker bees,” Delrosario said.

Woods couldn’t agree more. Welfare-to-work laws mean she must soon get a job to support herself and her child, she said. She is worried she won’t learn enough about new techniques and equipment at Trade-Tech to get one of the industry’s higher paying jobs. “I don’t want to spend two years here and not get the skills I need,” she said.

For now, Delrosario is working on finding corporate sponsors while making his case for greater state investment in culinary arts.

“We would like to create world-class cooks,” he said. Trade-Tech students, “don’t deserve less.”