Hyatt plays key role in workforce readiness

Aside from promoting tourism in the CNMI, nurturing the community to push it to its fullest potential is one of Hyatt Regency Saipan’s goals through the years. Its work with the Northern Marianas Trades Institute since 2008 to equip more island residents with the necessary hotel skills validates that goal and all efforts since then and now is geared toward getting the CNMI to a point where it won’t rely too much on getting the skills it needs from outside the Commonwealth.

“We have been involved with NMTI from the very beginning since Tony Pellegrino introduced the product to the CNMI. …It was underfunded and not producing enough number of students that the CNMI needed in order to fill positions in the hospitality industry,” said Hyatt Food & Beverage director Ty Pauling.

With the creation of NMTI, Hyatt became heavily involved in workforce readiness through [Hyatt HR chief] Josephine Mesta.

“Chefs were already involved when I arrived on island. Hyatt’s executive sous chef[s] were teaching a cooking course at NMTI in the very early days,” Pauling said.

In 2015, Pauling felt he had a big opportunity to do something with NMTI. “[NMTI chief executive officer] Agnes McPhetres got involved and we immediately rewrote the syllabus that covered a lot of points that were necessary to have the basic skills in the kitchen. Ultimately, all of these were focused on workforce readiness,” he said.

He said that Hyatt general manager Nick Nishikawa wanted to see the local workforce develop “because we believe that we could have a localized workforce with indigenous peoples, as well as U.S. citizens. We wanted U.S. citizens working in our workforce, we felt it was possible, and all it needed was for people to take the lead to do it,” he added.

With Pauling on board, the Culinary Arts program at NMTI exploded, allowing the trade school to build relationships with people who gave books, more chefs got involved and became instructors like Inos Hocog and Benjamin Babauta, trade tools like knife kits from Guam Food Guy Ken Stewart were donated, students started wearing uniforms, and a kitchen was finally built and finished. Truly, NMTI students became more engaged and pushed more people to join the CNMI workforce.

According to Pauling, the Culinary Arts program of NMTI should be on its way to the next level. “Now that NMTI is a semi- autonomous government agency, the program really has to start driving itself toward the next level. I think we are approaching a point of saturation in entry level students/people and so we need to step up to the next level,” he said.

Part of that next level is to get NMTI teachers certified to teach, move Culinary Arts toward an associate degree program, and get certification through the World of Association of Chefs’ Societies.

Whichever level or direction NMTI will take, Pauling assured that Hyatt will always help to forge community development.

“I don’t see where it would make sense for us to not support the development of a budding culinary field here in the CNMI. Our support may look differently throughout the years we have supported NMTI…but our team is really invested in their product and outcomes,” he said.

“We will always support growing the hospitality workforce in the CNMI. For as long as NMTI is doing that, we are always a strong supporter,” he added.