HONOLULU, HAWAII — To better prepare its students for management careers in the restaurant and foodservice industry, Hawaii Foodservice Academy announced today that it has adopted the ManageFirst Program offered through the National Restaurant Association Solutions. Created with input from more than 200 industry experts, including academics, operators, trainers, hiring managers and executives, the ManageFirst Program focuses on 12 essential topics for management success in the restaurant, foodservice and hospitality industry.
“With the ManageFirst Program, we are training our students in the real world skills and competencies that will enable them to make an immediate impact on the industry,” said Bob Toro, Director of Education. “We selected the ManageFirst Program for several reasons: the benefits it provides to our students, the flexibility it allows our instructors, and the strong tie it has forged with the industry.”
The ManageFirst Program includes 10 Competency Guides (published by Pearson Education), exams, certificates, a new ManageFirst Professional (MFP) credential, scholarship opportunities and support activities/services. It also includes ServSafe® Food Safety and ServSafe Alcohol®. Each ManageFirst Competency Guide teaches specific management skills, giving educators and students the ability to focus on particular courses of study or areas of interest. The NRA Solutions offers an exam for each guide topic and presents a customized certificate to students who pass each exam. Students also can earn a new credential – the ManageFirst Professional (MFP) credential – that designates their mastery of a set of defined competencies in the ManageFirst Program and also indicates the recipient has fulfilled a requirement of 800 hours of industry work experience. For more detailed information on the program, please visit www.prenhall.com/managefirst.
To sustain its projected growth, the restaurant and foodservice industry needs an additional 47,000 managers by the year 2018. The ManageFirst Program was developed to help build a pipeline of talented and skilled managers to meet that challenge. By focusing on the competencies identified by the industry as most critical, the program produces graduates who are ready to step into a management position. In its first two years of implementation, the ManageFirst Program has been adopted by more then 350, 2-year and 4-year schools throughout the nation.
Hawaii Foodservice Academy was founded this year by a collaboration of restaurateurs and food safety instructors to address the need for additional foodservice education resources here in Hawaii. We mainly focus on food safety and management educational areas, although we do offer a well-rounded curriculum to both managers and employees of the foodservice industry. Our Certified Instructors have over 100 combined years in the foodservice industry and are certified by both the National Restaurant Association and the National Registry of Food Safety Professionals. For more information, visit our Website at www.HawaiiFoodserviceAcademy.com
Submitted by the Hawaii Foodservice Academy