20 Hot Job Tracks: Hospitality
HOSPITALITY Catering director Next year will be the Year of the Party, says catering guru Mike Roman, who predicts a flurry of millennium fetes starting as early as July 4. Roman, founder of CaterSource, a trade group in Chicago, says the catering business is expanding at a 12 percent annual rate in the current flush economy, and that's not counting millennium bashes. At a small company, the catering director might work 16-hour days, doing everything from menu planning to setting up chairs. At larger firms, the director sells jobs and supervises staff. Hotels and restaurants are looking for catering directors, too, for new off-site catering divisions. Will the business stay strong post-millennium-or if there's a recession? Experts say yes-corporate entertaining and weddings are a caterer's bread and butter.
HOT-TRACK SALARIES (AVERAGE) ENTRY LEVEL: $22,800 MIDLEVEL: $30,000 TOP: $42,600
TRAINING. Sales and restaurant experience are valuable.
RUNNER-UP HOT TRACK. Meeting planner. The planner makes meetings and conventions more cost effective. Prospects for such jobs are growing because businesses have found that planners produce a better caliber of confab.
WHAT HOSPITALITY JOBS PAY SOUS-CHEF $26,000 WINE STEWARD $26,000* TRAVEL AGENT $26,300 RESTAURANT MANAGER $36,000* ASSISTANT HOTEL MANAGER $40,000 EXECUTIVE CHEF $41,000* FOOD AND BEVERAGE DIRECTOR $46,000 HOTEL GENERAL MANAGER $54,000 Note: Average salaries for 1996; *1995 Sources: CaterSource, National Catering Association, National Restaurant Association, Ritz-Carlton, Roosevelt University, Roth Young Personnel
ON THE JOB. NANCY MARTINUCCI, 35, catering director, Ritz-Carlton, Arlington, Va. Salary: $60,000-$70,000 Her greatest satisfaction is seeing a bride and groom on the dance floor after she's spent a year planning their wedding. Get the inside scoop on the catering business from our interview with Martinucci.
This story appears in the October 26, 1998 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.