From Culinary Kitchens to Kuwait She can fabricate a chicken as coolly as she can inspect a Black Hawk helicopter engine. Tina Shipp is a full-time culinary student and petty officer second class in the Navy Reserve. Graduation is within reach, but when she got the call in November 2006 to pack her bags for Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, her studies came to a halt. “I had to call the day before my externship [at Bites Café] to cancel it.”

In February 2007, she tucked away her culinary uniform, kissed her new granddaughter goodbye, and headed into combat training in Virginia, then on to Kuwait two months later. She lived on a base with 450 sailors from all over the United States. She worked as a certified borders and customs agent, where she inspected blown up helicopter engines and tanks, making sure there were no live rounds, dirt, drugs or insects inside before the parts were shipped back to the U.S.

 
The 43-Year-Old Calls Herself a 'Career Add-er' “I have been a cosmetologist for 20 years, a massage therapist for 12 years, I’ve been with the Navy for seven years and I’m a new grandmother. I don’t have a college degree. I always thought if I got one, I would do something I love. I love to feed people,” she says.

But leaving the cuisine of Johnson & Wales University and heading to the land of sand — more like powdered dirt she says — was not appetizing. “I refined my taste buds here at Johnson & Wales. [In Kuwait] I had to learn how to cook food in a microwave. I got creative. Everyone wanted to see what I was eating.”

After 10 months, Shipp got to come home and pick up a new externship. After she receives her diploma in May, she will add yet another career to her belt — personal chef. Anyone need a haircut, manicure, a good neck massage, a gourmet meal — and a quick check under the hood?
 
CoB Students Offer Paxton Business Insights It was a first for the College of Business (CoB). Students in strategic marketing classes served as consultants for the Paxton Companies.

Paxton, associated with Atlas Van Lines, does moving, storage and record retention. The objective was to expand the company’s record retention business. Two classes developed marketing plans for Paxton based on what they have learned about case analysis. Upperclassmen applied the knowledge they’ve gained over the past three-and-a-half years. Classes made a final presentation to Paxton managers in February.

“This is great preparation for what we are going to do ...when we get out of school,” Donald Rouse, senior marketing major said.

“When I am speaking to civic groups I am often asked what the community can do to show its support for Johnson & Wales University. I always like to say that the highest compliment an employer in our region can pay us is to hire one of our graduates.” - President Arthur Gallaghe