June 2019 Most Valuable Participant: John Reyes
Congratulations, John! John was selected because he has proven to be an excellent support system to his fellow exchange visitors, and he has excelled at his placement at Embassy Suites in downtown Louisville. Thank you John, for being an exceptional participant!
John Reyes is an outstanding person and is growing into being a great dependable cook, even with limited time in the field. I’ve told him his passion and drive will take him far in the Culinary/Hospitality industry. John has great character traits. I have been teaching him the importance of team work, effective communication, inventory, time management, people management, knife skills, banquet & catering skills, plate & presentation, how to lead a team, and many more skills he will need to possess to be successful in this field. John has really stepped up since he first started. Actually I was just on vacation for 6 days, and John stepped up and lead the entire kitchen as a sous chef would, even though he doesn’t have all the quality traits of a sous chef and still has a lot to learn, but he took the lead, and I’m so proud of him for that. He is definitely the “most valuable participant” that I’ve had through the WWCE EV program. Please recognize his efforts and continued success here at Embassy Suites. John will be greatly missed for his kindness, professionalism, hard work, and determination. I’m glad he learned a lot from me; he is so teachable and driven which helps a great deal.
JORDAN HAWTHORNE, EXECUTIVE CHEF
Name: John Marverick Reyes
Position: Culinary
Location: Embassy Suites Louisville Downtown
Fun Fact About You: I love to eat and try different kinds of food.
How are you hoping to apply this program once you’ve returned home? To have real world experience and to expose myself in hospitality Industry.
What is one of the biggest culture difference from the US and your home country? Americans punctuality is far from Filipinos. We Filipinos arrive at a certain party or event 1 hour late, but Americans are different they are always on time. But the “Filipino time culture” is not on my sleeves anymore because I learned it from this program and from my work.
How did this program help you gain independence? We live by ourselves which help us to gain and practice to be independent. We pay our rent, we pay our food, we feed ourselves and we are far away from our family that push us to be independent and to decide on our own.
How does the hospitality industry in the US differ from your home country? I noticed that sometimes when US employees are stressed, it can affect other employee’s work or tasks. Not like in our home country where people do their tasks without affecting others work. They get to manage and control tasks without hurting anyone’s feelings.
What has been the most memorable aspect of your program? Because of this program I find what I really want to do for the rest of my life which is cooking and to become a successful chef in the future.