ECC Culinary Arts Program director retires after two decades

Mike Zema might be ready to retire - to putter around the house, to spend more time with his wife and children, to travel.

That doesn't make the move any easier, the longtime director of Elgin Community College's Culinary Arts and Hospitality Program says.

After 26 years of service, Zema officially hung up his chef's coat Dec. 31.

After a 16-year stint at the Technology Center of DuPage, Zema began teaching culinary arts at the college part-time in 1982, back when aspiring chefs still shared a kitchen with the college's food services department.

Back then, he said, about 20 students were enrolled in the program, few of them earning degrees.

"The caliber of students is different today," Zema said. "People look at being a chef as a career. Twenty-five, 30 years ago we were considered domestic help."

Today, the program boasts nearly 400 students, trained in the college's $4 million Culinary Arts and Hospitality Center.

Zema was instrumental in the development and fundraising of the state-of-the-art facility, built in 2004.

Under his leadership, the program became the first in the state to be accredited by the Illinois Culinary Federation.

He also started the Austrian Exchange Program, where ECC culinary arts students travel to Semmering, Austria each year to study at the BLT School of Tourism, and facilitated opportunities for students to gain valuable experiences cooking and serving at the Kentucky Derby, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and the Western Open.

"You can't help getting to know the students," Zema said of his teaching career. "That's the best part of what I've been able to do. You have a job where you can have relationships with the students, and help build their self confidence and ability."

Numerous awards Zema has received during his tenure at ECC include the Auguste Escoffier USA Grand Prix Award and the Chef Herman Breithaupt Award.

Zema was officially bid farewell Dec. 11 at a dinner at the college's Spartan Terrace Restaurant.

For the meal, various classes prepared menu items that they'd learned over the past semester, said Jill Russell, who will take the helm of the program after Zema's retirement. Components included a shrimp bisque, sushi, carved roasts and pastries.

"Everybody's chipping in," Russell said. "We've started saying goodbye."

Proceeds from the meal, which cost $20 a plate, were put toward the Michael Zema Endowment Fund - a recently established fund that aims to keep culinary arts facilities and equipment up to date.

Zema doesn't plan to completely leave the campus, however. He was appointed as a member of the College's educational foundation. "I want to stay engaged," he said.

Zema was also awarded last year with dinner "golden tickets," allowing him and his wife the ability to attend any ECC culinary arts event carte blanche.

"It's a bit bittersweet," Zema said of his retirement. "But I could die tomorrow and say look what I've had the opportunity to get involved with."