Where cooking is academic

Nation's Business, April, 1997 by Sharon Nelton

Even though the teaching at the New England Culinary Institute (NECI) is modeled after that of a medical school, CEO Francis Voigt says that running a school to train chefs and cooks is more like running an opera.

Based in Montpelier, Vt., the school has more than 500 students, and many of its instructors are chefs with impressive backgrounds and egos to match. "The challenge," says Voigt, "is to orchestrate the performance, because it's not just the lead singer who's got to be in good form. The entire cast does."

Neither Voigt nor his partner, John Dranow, the chief operating officer, cooks. Voigt was dean of summer programs at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., in the late 1970s and Dranow was director of the school's summer writing program when they began to explore the possibility of running a business together. They considered and rejected several ideas--including a deer farm and a brewery.

When a colleague's husband suggested a culinary school, it made some sense. Dranow and Voigt were educators, after all.

Dranow visited two of the country's most prestigious cooking schools--the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.--and found that they had waiting lists. He asked former students what they would do if they could redesign the schools' programs. "We heard over and over again, from all of them: smaller classes, more hands-on training," says Voigt. "So that's what we did."

To raise money for NECI, Dranow and Voigt secured a $100,000 line of credit, putting up their houses and cars as collateral.

Launched in 1980 with seven students, NECI follows the medical-school approach by offering students intensive experience in a hands-on environment. At NECI, this means restaurants and other food-service facilities that the institute leases or owns in Montpelier and in Essex Junction, Vt., where it operates a second campus. These, in effect, form NECI's "university hospital," says Voigt. Two-thirds of NECI's annual revenues, which exceed $17 million, come from tuition, and the other third comes from the institute's enterprises.

A student-teacher ratio of 7-to-1 assures that each student receives personal attention, and additional training is provided through two six-month internships at restaurants and hotels in the United States and elsewhere, including France and Belgium.

Besides a two-year program leading to an associate degree in culinary arts, NECI offers a bachelor of arts degree in service and management for students who want to own or manage food-service operations.

Voigt says he and Dranow recognized that "many chefs are inclined to eat too much, and a number are alcoholics." As a preventive, NECI requires students to set physical-fitness goals and to participate in a wellness program. The school also gives its 300 teachers, administrators, and restaurant workers health-club memberships.

NECI places 96 to 100 percent of its graduates in jobs, and alumni hold positions in establishments such as the Rustler Lodge in Alta, Utah, and the trendy Red Sage restaurant in Washington, D.C.

Robert Bennett, a 1984 graduate, was fresh out of high school when he enrolled at NECI. Today he is the executive pastry chef at Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia, one of the country's stellar French restaurants.

The school "set the groundwork for everything I know right now," he says. He speaks highly of the student-teacher ratio and the personalized training it helped provide. "That was a big plus."

Voigt and Dranow note some of the other reasons for NECI's success:

* Their recognition that a school such as theirs is a business and faces all the competitive pressures and management demands of any business.

* An emphasis on user-friendly information about the school. The school catalog, for example, is not only informative but also inviting and lively. It is full of photographs, and praise from famous chefs such as Paul Bocuse, Julia Child, and Pierre Franey adds a touch of glamour.

* A focus on the customer. NECI employees are expected to set an example for good customer service, and students are required to be attentive to customer needs.

Two years ago, NECI was named a state honoree in the Blue Chip Enterprise Initiative. The program, which recognizes firms that have overcome adversity, is now sponsored by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., known as MassMutual--The Blue Chip Company, and by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Nation's Business, and "First Business," the half-hour morning TV news program presented by MassMutual and the Chamber.

Attending NECI carries a hefty price tag, although financial aid is available. Tuition, room, and board for the two-year program in the culinary arts is $38,790--not including the cost of books and knives.