My hospitality service apprenticeship began at my young age in the kitchen of a prestigious European five-star property, the Schloss Hotel Pichlarn, Styria (Steiermark) Austria under the stern and ever critical eyes of Chef Kahnhäuser. A yet more disciplined environment followed by my three years of strict and often merciless training under Chef Kahnhäuser two years of service with the Austrian Army. On completion of my military duty, I quickly rose through the hospitality industry ranks, first in Munich and later in Amsterdam, holding positions ranging from Banquet Captain, Chief Steward to Garde Manger and Sous Chef. I took to the ocean waves from Holland as I began the exploration of most of the world, working for such prestigious companies as Crystal Cruises, Silverseas, Crown Jewel and Holland-America lines. While on the waves, I honed my hospitality and food service skills with management responsibilities for ensuring not only supplies and staffing but providing passengers with the most luxurious and seamless experience at sea. This training and meticulous attention to detail caught the attention of people ashore, and after almost seven years plying the seas and oceans, including five round-the-world tours, I was finally tempted back to dry land.

Landing in 1998 in the California state capital, Sacramento, I found myself back in the food service industry where I worked as General Manager of a restaurant group. I followed this with a six-year stay in the Pacific Northwest where I was appointed first as Director of Catering and Culinary Development at Sodexho Marriott, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington and later with the same title at Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho. In 2001, back in Washington State once more, I was asked to use his superb organizational, staffing and motivational skills to establish the now well-known Silver Reef Casino, just south of Bellingham. After remaining two years to ensure smooth operation of the new casino food and beverage services, I returned to California for another two years directing food and beverage services for Renaissance and Hyatt Regency hotel properties in San Francisco and Santa Clara.

For a further two years ending in 2009, I responded to a call from Europe to join a Dutch-based food and beverage consultancy, specializing in analyzing client needs, high quality staff training services and operations. However, by the end of this assignment, I had determined that North America was to be my permanent home.  After setting up a new hotel property in New York state, I spent a year, criss-crossing the continent looking for that perfect place to settle. I found it finally, after arriving in the lower mainland of British Columbia in 2010.