Born and raised in Chicago, John Salazar has been fascinated by the hustle and bustle of the hospitality industry for as long as he can remember.

“When I was in high school in Chicago, I enjoyed visiting the hotels downtown, where I got a feel for the industry. Hotel lobbies are some of the liveliest places in a city, and I was drawn to the activity I saw there, the beautiful work settings, the guest interactions, the history in these buildings,” Salazar said.

Following this passion, Salazar majored in hospitality in college, took internships with Marriott International and worked at Logan International Airport to better understand the full scope of the hospitality industry. At the end of his first year of college at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Salazar considered transferring to a program at Michigan State University or Northeastern University, along with a few other options farther south. One of the options was the University of Georgia.

“I knew they had a reputable program in their family and consumer sciences college, and I’d always had a desire to explore the Southern United States more fully, so I picked up the phone and gave UGA a call to learn more,” said Salazar. 

Unfortunately, he learned that UGA was ending their program, so Salazar decided to attend Northeastern University in Boston, where he received a bachelor’s degree in commercial recreation management with a specialization in hotel management. More than 30 years later, an email from a colleague put Athens, Georgia, back on Salazar’s life map. In 2019, Salazar was hired to start the Hospitality and Food Industry Management (HFIM) program in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Since its rebirth with Salazar at the helm as a professor and director, the HFIM program has experienced exponential growth. HFIM is the second-fastest-growing major at UGA since 2019, with 335% growth since its establishment. 

HFIM interns have been placed with 81 companies in 13 states and the District of Columbia, totaling 144 internship placements. Students are exposed to the broad scope of hospitality through placements ranging from Chateau Elan Winery and Resort in Braselton, Georgia, to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

“I think the fast growth of our program demonstrates that hospitality and tourism are vital components of the state economy,” Salazar said. “Our program is not based on the theoretical or the case study, it’s based on real-life experience and the practice of hospitality leadership.”

In Georgia alone, there are nearly 400,000 individuals employed in some segment of hospitality. With the unique mix of leisure travel in coastal Georgia and convention travel in Atlanta, HFIM students have a wealth of opportunities to choose the area that suits them best.

This versatile experience — with its focus on quality curriculum, meaningful interaction with local and national business, and experiential learning — has already begun graduating the next generation of hospitality leaders.

To learn more about the Hospitality and Food Industry Management program, and Georgia’s hospitality ecosystem, listen to John Salazar on “Cultivating Curiosity,” a podcast produced by CAES.

A vacation to the Caribbean when he was in high school proved to be an eye-opener for Connor Logan.

“I stayed at a Marriott hotel. While I was there, I couldn’t help but think that the experience — the accommodations, service, food — was so phenomenal that I wanted to be part of that industry, to help other people have experiences like I had,” Logan said.

In 2019, the McDonough, Georgia, native transferred to UGA when the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences launched the Hospitality and Food Industry Management (HFIM) degree program. He completed his first two years in the hospitality program at Kennesaw State University.

Following graduation from CAES in 2021, he was accepted to Marriott International’s 12-month management development program. In 2022, he landed a job at the company’s Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel in Chicago.

“I started at the front desk, but last year, the food and beverage manager left. My boss asked me if I’d be interested in trying something else,” Logan recalled. “I said yes and became the food and beverage operations manager. I oversee three restaurants and room service for the hotel.”

Now Logan draws on the lessons he learned while earning his HFIM degree as he balances the logistics of running a 500-room hotel with a convention center and multiple food and beverage outlets and juggles staffing, purchasing and planning.

“You never want to have a conversation with a guest because you’re out of napkins, or you’re out of salt or some other minor detail that’s easy to miss. You want to make sure you catch all those things well in advance by looking at your projected data from previous years, occupancy rates and whatnot. There’s a lot of data you have to analyze to look for emerging patterns.”

The two mandatory internships required as a part of the HFIM curriculum were “incredibly helpful because you work with professionals in the field and learn how to talk with them professionally,” he said. “It built up my confidence.”

During Logan’s first internship, in a front-desk position at Callaway Gardens Resort in Pine Mountain, Georgia, he shadowed the revenue manager and attended weekly meetings to learn operations. His second internship was in Athens, Georgia, at the UGA Center for Continuing Education and Hotel, where he rotated between responsibilities in housekeeping, front desk, culinary, and food and beverage.

“Internships are a great way to see what goes on day to day in an actual work environment,” Logan said. “Theory and practice are completely different in any field, and hospitality is no different.”

Wine and dine

Ava McDonald, food and beverage manager, Westin Atlanta Gwinnett Hotel

When Ava McDonald moved to Georgia in 2014, Southern hospitality made quite an impression on the Albany, New York, native.

“People say, ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, sir.’ You don’t get that in New York,” she said. “Southern hospitality applies to how you interact with people. It’s difficult for Northerners to understand. It took me a while to get hold of the idea, but I did and it has worked out well.”

A 2021 graduate of the University of Georgia’s Hospitality and Food Industry Management (HFIM) program, McDonald puts hospitality into practice as the food and beverage manager for the Westin Atlanta Gwinnett Hotel in Duluth, Georgia. The 11-story, 348-room facility, which opened in March 2023, contains two restaurants and a rooftop bar. The four-star hotel sits adjacent to a convention center, arena, theater and performing arts center.

Previously, she worked as food and beverage manager for the Chateau Elan resort in Braselton, Georgia, where her responsibilities included staff management and menu planning.

“When the opportunity came to work at a new hotel from the start, I couldn’t resist,” said McDonald, who began hiring and training new food-service staff at the Westin several weeks before it opened.

Her HFIM degree has helped her career in many ways, particularly when crunching numbers for scheduling workers or ordering food and supplies.

 “If you’re in the hotel business, you can forecast what your day is going to be like from a food perspective because you know how many rooms are booked and how much business you’re going to have,” she explained. “You can understand the different events happening across the hotel that will affect your business and who your clientele is going to be, so you can plan accordingly.”

When she enrolled at UGA, McDonald was undecided on a major until she I took an introduction to HFIM class. “I ended up absolutely falling in love with the program.”

Working in the hotel business, McDonald knows she has the power to make a guest’s whole experience more magical through a simple gesture such as acknowledging a birthday or anniversary.

A Taste for Learning

Liam Dennis, HFIM student

Liam Dennis is passionate about cooking and the opportunity it affords him for creative expression.

“I feel a bit like an artist when I’m working in the kitchen,” said the fourth-year Hospitality and Food Industry Management (HFIM) student.

Dennis traces his culinary affinity to helping prepare family meals with his mom, “a great cook from a family of great cooks.”

“I grew up in the kitchen,” said Dennis, an Atlanta native. At age 15, Dennis went to work for Atlanta’s Endive Fine Catering, a catering company owned by a friend’s father, honing his culinary skills while still in high school.

Though he was accepted to numerous culinary schools, the opportunity to attend his self-described “dream school” while pursuing his dream career presented itself when he enrolled in the HFIM program.

The curriculum combines classroom instruction with mandatory internships and additional opportunities to acquire practical experience, and Dennis, who was still working for Endive Fine Catering, used the job as his first internship.

During his second internship with Atlanta caterer Proof of the Pudding, Dennis worked as a suite supervisor at Sanford Stadium.

“I made sure the right food was in the right suite at the right time,” he said. “That was awesome and a whole other level in the industry that I’d never seen before.”

In 2022, through the HFIM program, he worked at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, as a food expediter. There, he ensured efficient order flow between kitchen and servers and assisted in final dish preparation. A College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences study abroad program to Spain showed him how agribusiness works abroad. 

Dennis received a merit-based scholarship sponsored by the Savannah, Georgia-based Tourism Leadership Council, which gives annual awards to university students planning to enter the industry. He plans to use the $2,500 award for culinary classes after graduating from CAES. The education he received in food and beverage operations, hospitality financial management, hotels and lodging, tourism, food science and nutrition and more have brought him closer to his ultimate objective.

“My goal is to run a successful culinary business,” he said.