Mentoring high school students has many benefits, said Sean Baldwin, general manager at the Pilot Butte Drive-In in Bend, Ore. Baldwin is an industry veteran whose career began as a dishwasher when he was 15. He later graduated from the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, Ore., and spent several years with the Stanford’s Restaurant & Bar chain, now owned by Restaurants Unlimited Inc., as a sous chef and later manager. For the last four seasons, he’s been a mentor to ProStart students at Bend High School.
ProStart is the school-to-career program created by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation that is conducted in more than 1,600 schools across the country. The two-year program introduces students to culinary arts and restaurant management. Every year, hundreds of ProStart students compete for scholarships by demonstrating culinary skills and management knowledge at the national ProStart Invitational. This year, Bend High students took first place in the management competition.
What is a ProStart mentor?
It’s a fun experience. It keeps me in touch with the basics—staying clean, neat and organized. What I’m teaching the kids carries over from the classroom. My employees pay for it, though. I’m telling them, hey, you’re folding that wrong or the bleach water is not right. It’s enabled me to blend [managing and teaching] together rather than just doing employee training.
Isn’t mentoring pretty time consuming?
I’m lucky to have jobs that make me available from 9:30 to 11 [a.m.], four days a week, sometimes five. I spend 10 to 15 hours a week at the school and that does not include time at home doing research and trying to give these kids some ideas about what they want to learn. When the school year ends, like now, I’m at a bit of a loss.
What advice would you give to other restaurant managers or chefs thinking about mentoring students?
Take on one student and see if the interest is there and the rest will follow.