When locally-renowned chef Adam Donnelly was a kid, he couldn’t have cared less about cooking, menu planning, or even the means by which food ended up on his family’s dinner table.

But after two years of training at Red River College’s Culinary Arts program, Donnelly — now the head chef and co-owner of Segovia Tapas Bar & Restaurant — found he’d discovered his true calling, an epiphany that would kick-start his career as one of the most buzzed-about young chefs in the city.

“When I was younger, I’d just come home and food would be on the table,” says Donnelly, a 28-year-old Pinawa native. “I never helped my mom make food because I was never really that interested in it. Then I got older and moved away, and I had to learn to do it all myself.”

Donnelly’s original post-secondary plan was to pursue film studies in university, but he began bingeing on cookbooks and books about cooking during a break between semesters. He decided instead to take a year off so he could save up for Culinary Arts; shortly after classes commenced, he knew he was hooked.

“It really kept me interested — there was so much I didn’t know, so every day I came to school, I would learn something new and different,” says Donnelly, while preparing for the dinner rush at his Osborne Village eatery.

“(The program) really gives you the basic starting skills that you need to succeed in a professional kitchen. And then you take it from there — whether you want to cook in a hotel, or cooking Italian food or French food or whatever — you can take those basic skills and go in any direction you want.” Read More →

As one of the frontline employees for the newly-restructured Assiniboine Park Conservancy, Karen Cox gets to avail herself of some pretty breathtaking on-the-job perks.

So while the rest of us are toiling away in cramped cubicles or harshly-lit retail outlets, Cox spends her days at one of the city’s best-loved tourist destinations — a 1,110-acre site that has for decades been described as Winnipeg’s “crown jewel.”

“Assiniboine Park is really a one-of-a-kind place in Winnipeg,” says Cox, 24, a recent graduate of RRC’s Hospitality and Tourism Management program.

“We have so much greenspace to offer newcomers who are visiting the city or the province for the first time, and also local residents. It’s just a great place to spend time with your friends and family — an overall fun place to be.”

Raised in Teulon, Man., Cox moved to Winnipeg directly after high school, enrolling at the University of Manitoba, where she’d originally considered a career in recreation. A year later, she decided that university wasn’t the best fit, so she instead enrolled in RRC’s two-year Hospitality program, where she majored in Tourism Management

“I knew that I loved working with people, so I thought that tourism would be a great career path for me,” says Cox.

“I know the tourism industry is continually growing and full of opportunities — people are always coming and going — and because I really enjoy working with people, I thought it would be the perfect choice.” Read More →