Hey, Chef - Break a Leg

By John Kinsella, CMC, CCE, WGMC, AAC

When actors and actresses are about to go onstage, someone always says, "Go break a leg." As I write this article, I have a broken leg. It happened when I was playing with my dog. In her enthusiasm she crashed into me and knocked me over.

Like actors and actresses, every day we are onstage, performing for the dining public. We also perform as a federation, and a great piece of news is how we have performed in the past two years with regards to membership. When my board and I took office, we had 17,500 members. At the end of October we had 20,656 members, which is approximately a 20% increase over the first two years of this board's tenure. During that time, we have seen changes in our national staff and a restructuring of our national office. Under new leadership, our office has progressed beyond my wildest dreams.

We are forming a national, independent certification commission to oversee our future certification efforts. Each certified member should be held accountable to a code of ethics that all professionals are held to in the United States. The commission will have public members and representation from every ACF certification level. Our job-analysis task force has completed the first stage of the evolution of the certified-executive-chef certification. The next step will be a report and survey that will be distributed to both members and nonmembers. Their input will help us expand the recommendations of the task force. We have also started the national curriculum task force, which will develop national standards at every level of certification to ensure that a member starting at the certified-culinarian level of certification would be able to progress through the certification process to master chef.

We are showing strong numbers in all our revenue-producing centers. This bodes well for the future of our organization, because if we have a strong financial basis and strong educational and certification programs, our membership will continue to increase.

When I was elected, I promised that I would not change things for the sake of changing them. The goal of this board is to review how we do business and determine if we can more effectively serve our members. If we sustain the kind of growth we are enjoying now for the next 10 years, it should take us to where we need to be as a federation.

Our state-representatives task-force chair has given me some exciting proposals that I will be discussing with him. I also asked the task force to take a look at a form of state government that would streamline communication and enable us to react more quickly and deal with issues that need immediate attention. For many years we have struggled to keep abreast of the changing demographics of this federation. The Texas Chefs Association has been successful working in state government, and has developed a plan that enables them to have an annual meeting during which they discuss issues that affect their industry within the state and talk to their legislators to see how our industry can be protected.

If we enacted such a government, it would mean that each state would have the votes of each of their chapters representing their concerns. In the larger states, where there are many chapters, having two state representatives would be feasible. My only concern is that government has to be effective to continue growth, and we need to look at all the different models to create the effectiveness that we need. So, let's put on our thinking caps, put principles above personalities, and go to work on the fundamental goal of strengthening the effectiveness of ACF for the foreseeable future.

As we go forward, let's listen to all these great task forces, which will propel us to the dizzying heights of having quality membership and certification and education programs that are second to none in the world.

On behalf of Jean and my family, I wish you a wonderful and peaceful holiday season. May all your dreams come true and, most of all, the dreams of all the members who make up the American Culinary Federation.