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Julia Phelan |
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"It's one thing to have a career and another thing to make the
most of it," says Phelan. "You have to take a deeper
interest in what you do."
After years of schooling and working in different industries,
Phelan is now pursuing something she can really get into.
Her mission
as a food service professional in the healthcare field
is to help solve the current obesity problem.
"It would be interesting to see obesity come away from
private health care and become more of a medical problem
than a personal problem," she says.
Throughout her career, she has been building towards
this goal by adding important and valuable tools to her
kit.
After working in the television industry, Phelan
decided to pursue her love of cooking and enrolled in
the Chef Apprentice program at George Brown College.
"It was top-notch," she says of her experience at the
Chef School. "They had all modern equipment, the latest
instruction and
good training."
After completing the program in 1987, Phelan worked for
a catering company in Yorkville and Cibo restaurant.
She also ran her own establishment called Provence, which
she sold in the 1990s.
After her restaurateur days came
to an end, Phelan became interested in the nutritional
side of the industry. Remembering
the good old days at the Chef School, she decided to
go back to George Brown
College for the postgraduate Food and Nutrition Management
program. Her previous culinary training proved to be
an important asset.
"In order to get into nutritional management at George
Brown, you had to already have chef training; other colleges
didn't require that," Phelan explains. "That gave me
the edge to go to the top of the résumé pile because I had both."
Phelan found her second experience at George Brown just
as satisfying and advantageous as the first.
"The nutrition
side was bang on. We learned everything you needed
to do in the real world. They brought in a
lot of people from the industry to speak to us and
we often did tours through the
hospitals," Phelan recalls. "(The program) was a real
feather in my cap and allowed my career to really take
off."
After graduating from the one-year program in
1992, Phelan began a long run working in just about
every hospital from St. Joseph's
Health Centre to Toronto Western Hospital to the
Hospital for Sick Children in catering and cafeteria
services. She also spent five years working
at Casey House, a hospice for people with HIV/AIDS.
Currently,
she divides her time as food service supervisor between
Bridgepoint Health Hospital and Seaton House
rehabilitation centre. Her main responsibility
is to ensure that the food service is
carried out according to regulations and meets
the dietary needs of the patients.
Phelan also is working
away at a Bachelor of Science degree where she is "ahead
of the other students
because of George Brown College."
Upon completion of her degree, Phelan hopes to
become a dietician and continue combining her
passion for food with her interest in health and wellness.
"It's been a wonderful career. I consider it
a privilege to work in a caring industry."
We encourage you to visit the Alumni Association.
Or, contact information the Hospitality & Tourism Alumni association
at:
Hospitality & Tourism Alumni
300 Adelaide St. E.
Toronto, ON M5A 1N1
To learn more, visit the George
Brown College Alumni page.
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