This Military Veteran Became an Executive Chef — and He Has Thoughts On That Transition
Many veterans pursue careers in the hospitality industry after military service. In fact, one of the country's oldest culinary schools was founded after World War II as a training program for former soldiers.
This is likely because there's a natural connection between kitchen life and military life. Anyone who’s worked in a restaurant kitchen — or even seen one in action — can hear how easily “yes, chef!” echoes “yes, sergeant!” (and vice versa).
That's not to say, of course, that all former service members will succeed in becoming chefs. Like any respected title, chef is an appellation earned over time (versus bestowed at one's first day working the line.) Still, the parallels between military and restaurant hierarchies and their shared senses of community are clear.
For Online Culinary Arts & Food Operations Lead Chef-Instructor Shawn Matijevich, those parallels aren’t theoretical. After serving in the Navy for five years, he worked in numerous restaurant kitchens. Now, he helms a different kind of crew — culinary students.
Here’s what he has to say about how service can prepare veterans for culinary careers.
Enlisting in the Navy
Chef Shawn’s kitchen career began before his military service — and was the reason he enlisted.
“I really wanted to go to culinary school, but I couldn’t afford it,” says Chef Shawn, who had already been working in restaurants in his home state of Virginia before enlisting. “I knew that I could potentially pay for culinary school with the GI® Bill*, so I joined the Navy.”
As an aspiring chef, he viewed his military service as a means of paying for culinary school and acquiring whatever kitchen training he could while enlisted. (Many culinary schools, ICE included, offer tuition discounts for veteran students.)
To actually get into the Navy’s kitchen, however, Chef Shawn had to make a case to his superiors. The barrier to entry wasn’t because the position was highly coveted — in fact, it was quite the opposite.
“I had to convince them to let me be a cook, because that’s all I really wanted,” he says. “They tried to convince me not to — because most people in the military don’t think of that as the best job — but it actually is one of the coolest jobs. The cooking isn’t exactly fine dining, as you’re preparing meals for 1,000 people at a time. But you do learn quite a bit about leadership, business and logistics, which was really important later on in my career.”
Here, Chef Shawn reflects on his experiences in the Navy — and how they informed his subsequent career as a chef.
Creative Problem Solving
Many of the skills Chef Shawn learned in the military helped him succeed as a chef — especially when managing others.
Two such skills inform his leadership style today:
- Working with people from different backgrounds and life experiences, and leveraging the unique skills each brings to the table.
- Assessing problems with outside-the-box thinking, and distilling the most practical solutions among options.
“You can't quit the military once you start,” he says. “You have to deal with whatever comes up, and you have to make it work. You can’t just fire someone. We were in the middle of the ocean, and if a conflict arose, we had no choice but to get the job done. That forces you to be very creative and work through problems.”
According to Chef Shawn, working well with others isn’t the only skill that can give former servicemembers an advantage in professional kitchens.
“[Veterans] have all this experience and this incredible skill set that can translate into civilian life," he says. "There's a whole list of other things that are so important that don't get taught in a fine-dining kitchen: the leadership aspect and the ability to prepare and come up with good logistical plans.
Christian Souvenir, a veteran who graduated from ICE, knew he had leadership skills — acquired during his seven-year Navy service — and wanted to apply them to the hospitality industry. Listen to why he chose to pursue a second career in restaurants and how he put his leadership skills to use in the video below.
Discovering Global Cuisine
Various deployments took Chef Shawn to new places, including the Middle East and Southeast Asia, where he explored cuisines, techniques and ingredients that were new to him.
Some of his favorite experiences were in ports where the U.S. government didn’t have contracts with major food service vendors. That meant they had to use intermediaries to source food locally, like fresh chorizo in Cozumel, which was used in tacos or breakfast burritos for the crew. “People really enjoyed that because it was something different,” says Chef Shawn.
Southeast Asia sparked his interest so much that, following his military service, Chef Shawn moved to Vietnam for six months. (Watch Chef Shawn cook Soy Braised Kabocha Squash with Pumpkin Seed Furikake and Seaweed Butter — inspired by his love for Asian flavors and ingredients — in the video below.)
“After going to all those different countries, you can’t just stop,” he says. “I went back and tried to explore. The cooking methods are usually very simple, but the number of ingredients they have is incredible. There were so many things that I couldn't even describe to people back home.”
Chef Shawn credits his service in the Navy with broadening his culinary horizons and allowing him to experience new flavors in authentic settings. Veterans entering hospitality can often draw on their time overseas — bringing global flavors and techniques to their cooking.
The Power of Food
Chef Shawn found that his restaurant experience before military service was invaluable in his position. The additional training had a tremendous effect on his crew — and their morale.
He specifically remembers transitioning from cooking for 1,000 people to cooking for only 70 on a small ship during one of his deployments.
“In that scenario, I could actually use some of the skills that I had to feed people really good food, and they appreciated that,” he says.
“When the work is so hard, and difficult and potentially dangerous, those three meals that you can count on are usually your favorite time of day — as long as the food is good. I realized the power of what food can do for people when it affected the morale of the entire crew.”
And that’s the ethos of hospitality — caring for people and creating moments of comfort. It’s the same sense of purpose many veterans describe when they talk about why the kitchen feels familiar.
Veterans dedicate their lives and careers to taking care of people, and hospitality is no different. Working in service of a greater good is another parallel between the military and professional kitchens.
Though the venue has changed — from a Navy ship in the middle of the ocean to his computer at home — Chef Shawn still relies on the lessons he learned during his service. As an educator, those values guide how he leads, mentors and connects with students.
"[In the Navy] I always tried to figure out what motivates someone and what makes them excited about what they’re doing," he says. "Usually the best thing is to look for positive aspects, and see what common ground you can find, and work from there.”
Study with Chef Shawn in ICE's Online Culinary Arts & Food Operations Program
*GI Bill® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). More information about education benefits offered by VA is available at the official U.S. government website at http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill.
