Four foodservice educators were honored as the best in their field in the 2018 CAFÉ/Sysco Corp. Educator of the Year Awards presented at the 14th-Annual Leadership Conference of the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ) in Milwaukee on June 14.
Houston-based Sysco Corp., the inaugural sponsor of the awards program, is in its fourth year of supporting this annual national award that acknowledges industry contributions of foodservice instructors. All award recipients—who received endorsements from their administrators, program and industry colleagues, and former and current students—are professional culinarians with celebrated commercial work experience prior to teaching.
This year’s honorees are:
2018 CAFÉ/Sysco Corp. Postsecondary Educator of the Year—Nannette Mendez, assistant professor, The José A. Tony Santana International School of Hospitality and Culinary Arts, Universidad del Este, San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Runner-up, postsecondary—Katrina Warner, coordinator and culinary-arts instructor, Tarrant County College, Arlington, Texas
- 2018 CAFÉ/Sysco Corp. Secondary Educator of the Year—Ana Plana, department chair and culinary-arts instructor, Maritime and Science Technology (MAST) Academy, Key Biscayne, Fla.
- Runner-up, secondary—Maybell Galusha, culinary-arts instructor, The Career Academy (Lincoln Public Schools and Southeast Community College), Omaha, Neb.
As Educators of the Year, Mendez and Plana each earned a $1,500 grant. All four educators received commemorative plaques from Sysco Corp. and complimentary full registrations to the 2018 CAFÉ Leadership Conference, June 14-16 at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) in Wisconsin.
