“We are thrilled to see a university of Sullivan’s stature recognize and address the tremendous growth that our industry is experiencing today,” says Candy Wallace, founder and executive director of APPCA. “Sullivan University’s new diploma program for personal and private chefs validates what our organization has promoted for two decades, that those wishing to earn a respectable and rewarding living cooking for others have choices beyond working in a traditional restaurant or foodservice operation.”

Students enrolled in the program must earn 68 credits from the curriculum that mandates training in basic culinary skills, garde manger, international cuisines, dining services and wines and spirits, in addition to academic courses. The fourth quarter of the program is dedicated to successfully operating a personal-chef business or fulfilling the role of private chef, as well as an introduction to professional catering.

Much of the program’s final-quarter instruction will come from The Professional Personal Chef: the Business of Doing Business as a Personal Chef (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), the first definitive textbook for prospective personal chefs, written by Wallace and Gregory C. Forte, CEC, CCE, of Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Fla. Sullivan University also offers the diploma program for night and weekend students encompassing 21 months of study.

“For more than 45 years, the goal of Sullivan University has been to prepare students for success, and we have the record to prove it,” says Tom Hickey, CEC, CCE, CFE, CHE, director of NCHS. “Our courses have continually evolved to meet the needs of the business world, and our innovation in launching the nation’s first diploma program for personal and private chefs is merely the latest example of our leadership in meeting the future head on. We’re excited to guide prospective personal and private chefs in achieving fulfilling careers that will serve and sustain them throughout their lives, while contributing to the betterment of American society as a whole.”

Wallace founded the American Personal Chef Association in 1996 as the first significant national effort to recognize the impact of personal chefs on Americans’ evolving lifestyles and to provide career and management training to those who aspire to become personal chefs with their own businesses. She forged the positioning of personal chefs as culinary professionals, culminating in 2002 with a formal partnership with the American Culinary Federation to award certification to qualified personal chefs. The following year, she was honored with the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ (IACP) Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 2006, Wallace formally acknowledged the contributions of private chefs to American society by restructuring her organization to become the American Personal & Private Chef Association to address their specific professional needs.

“Never has there been a better time to pursue a career as a personal or private chef,” Wallace says.