Sarah Wicker
Email: swicker@starisland.org
Phone: (603) 817-4357
Desired Position: Hospitality or food service position
that uses my skills and interests.
2001-present: Food Service
Manager, Star Island, Portsmouth, N.H.
| Duties include:
-Overseeing the production of 3 meals per day for 380 people in two
seatings.
-Overseeing the functioning of peripheral food service departments (dish
room, bakery, snack bar, dining room).
-Creating and implementing training protocol for 42 staff of wildly
varying skills levels, most of whom are young people and many of whom
have never held a job in the past.
-Providing training for the supervisors of 5 food service departments,
and providing them with the tools required to manage their own crews.
-Adhering to a strict budget for both food and peripheral expenses.
Food service on Star Island was provided in the season of 2005 at an
average cost of $5.05 per person per day. This was inclusive of all
food and beverages, and was done without sacrificing quality, freshness
or variety.
-Negociating advantageous purchasing arrangements with vendors, including
equipment programs and bid pricing.
-Monitor inventory for all food service departments
-Responsible for all ordering of paper, cleaning, and food products
for both the food service and hotel departments.
-Formulating a logistics plan for transporting all supplies and food
to a remote island site with limited boat resources and troublesome
weather.
-Assisted in the design of a new off season cooking facility.
-Assisting in continual upgrades in a badly aging facility.
-Directing and advising the facilities department in food service facilities
issues.
-Opening and closing two kitchens at the end of each season. Extensive
measures must be taken to prevent damage off season from both freezing
and pests.
*Note: this is a 6 month position, I sail on my boat in the Caribbean the remainder of the year
1996-2001: Owner and Chef,
Supper at Six, Portland, ME.
-Started from scratch a home meal replacement and catering business
on a budget of 20K. The business rapidly outgrew the initial site and
was moved to a larger facility after 1 year. I also constructed this
second kitchen from scratch, but at a substantially higher cost.
-Supper at Six employed 3 full time cooks, in addition to myself, and
8 part time staff.
-We catered functions of up to 300 people, focusing on casual and corporate
catering. We were strictly an off site caterer providing all services.
Our primary on site business was a busy take out service, focusing strongly
on dinners.
-The business was sold in 2001. At the time of sale gross receipts were
approximately 300K annually.
1995-1996: Chef at Walters Café, Perfetto and Joe’s Boathouse, three restaurants owned by the same people in Portland, ME. I was a rotating line chef, so I learned all stations of the 3 menus in the 3 locations. I assisted in the opening of Joe’s Boathouse, and assisted in creating much of the menu, as well as production protocol for the new dishes.
1996: Chef, Nona’s Café, Ventura, CA, a trendy nouvelle cuisine Italian garden restaurant with a strong lunch business. I was responsible for all ordering, creation of daily specials, monthly inventory and staffing.
1995: Food Service Manager for Price Club, Oxnard, CA. I was the general manager for a busy fast food department in the second biggest Price Club in the U.S. Sales were almost exclusively pizza and hot dogs and grossed over $3.5 million annually. This position required intensive staff management, including challenging shrink control issues. This was the only position I ever held in a unionized environment.
1989-1995: First Cook and Kitchen Supervisor, Star Island, Portsmouth N.H.
*Note: This was a 6 month position. While working on Star Island as First Cook, I spent the other 6 months of the year sailing in the South Pacific with my family on a small sailboat
Before 1989:
-Held several waitressing and cooking jobs in Hawaii.
-Attended U.C. Berkeley. While attending college I lived in a student
co-op for my first year, where I worked as the food service manager
for two semesters in exchange for a rent deferment.
-My summer job in high school was working on my father’s deep
sea commercial fishing boat in the summers, pulling albacore and cooking
for 6 hungry and cold deckhands in all sorts of foul weather, usually
several hundred miles off the California and Oregon coast.
Other interests and skills:
-I speak fluent English, proficient Spanish and poor French
-I enjoy long distance sailing, scuba diving, and spear fishing.
-I have a great interest in the cuisines of other cultures and I particularly
admire those who can make great meals under the most primitive of circumstances.
-I take pride in my ability to cook well in challenging situations;
not limited to, but including, extreme weather on boats (I don’t
get sea sick), off site situations with limited equipment and/or refrigeration
and in extreme heat or cold.
-I have a lot of stamina.
Education:
High School: Tomales High School, Tomales, CA
College: UC Berkeley, 3 years, studying Paleontology
References available upon request