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contributed
- Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the Western
Hospitality Institute, Cecil Cornwall.
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The early days
Claudia Gardner, Gleaner Writer
The main driving force behind the Western Hospitality Institute
has been its founding president and chief executive officer, Cecil
Cornwall. Cornwall hails from the bustling town of Santa Cruz in
St Elizabeth and is a graduate of the St Elizabeth Technical High
School.
Twenty years ago, he migrated to the tourism capital, Montego Bay,
and from there his career in the tourism industry began to flourish.
"I only worked in the restaurant industry for less than six
months after high school," Cornwall recounted. "I think
I must credit the faculty at the St Elizabeth Technical High School,
which had really given me a very sound foundation with regards to
my practical and theoretical skills, but the skills were enhanced
having worked with Butterflakes Pastries for that short six-month
stint.
"I started Western Hospitality Institute then. At the time
it was Western School of Cake Decorating, Pastry Making and Cooking.
I used to train housewives and persons who needed a skill in how
to bake and decorate cakes."
"I won a scholarship through the Jamaica Tourist Board to
do my undergraduate studies at Canada's premier culinary school,
the George Brown College in Toronto," Cornwall said. "At
the time, I went up to do a professional development certificate
programme in certificate training to become an instructor, after
which I went back and completed my undergraduate programme in food
and beverage. Upon finishing my studies there, I returned to Jamaica,
expanded the business and did my master's at Revens University in
Colorado which had a programme with the JHTA at the time."
Cornwall, who is now pursuing his doctorate with Columbia Southern
University, explained what was his mission at the time he established
the institute.
"I saw there was a need to equip persons and to impart the
knowledge to persons who require skills," he said. "In
those days, many university graduates saw cooking as domestic science
and, therefore, they were leaving university as great practitioners
in their respective fields - doctors, lawyers, etc., but in order
to keep their households together they needed to learn a skill.
They wanted to learn how to cook, and that was how we were able
to train a number of them. We also wanted to give persons who needed
a skill to seek employment in the work world to cook, to bake, to
make drink, bartending and waitering skills. That was how it was
until it expanded to what it is today."
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