Employee Center

Melinda Wood is a graduate of the Institute of Technology, and has worked at the Clovis campus for ten years. She brings a great deal of passion, knowledge, and energy to her role as Clovis’ Director of Student Services. She has recently demonstrated her commitment to excellence in two significant ways.

Firstly, ever since the Clovis campus moved to their newest location in 2005, students have had to get off the bus on the north side of Herndon Avenue, and walk from there to the campus on the south side of Herndon. Since Herndon is an expressway, it is not a friendly walk. Students have had to walk a long way in order to get to the campus while crossing the street legally.

To help out these students, Melinda (with assistance from VP of Compliance, Rick Wood) appealed to the City of Clovis to change their bus route. And they did! Clovis now has a bus stop directly in front of their school on Magill Avenue!

Secondly, the Clovis Campus re-entered 30 Fresh Start students this month. That is an all-time record at Clovis and a remarkable achievement! Melinda leads Clovis’ Fresh Start efforts, and she approaches the role with fervor. With 41 terms so far this month, the Clovis campus has a current July drop rate of only 1%!

Congratulations to Melinda Wood, the BrightStar Education Group Employee of the Month for July 2010!

BrightStar welcomes IOT-Redding’s new DFA, Rob Smith.  Rob comes to IOT with 16 years experience in the Financial Aid and Student Loan industries.  He is from the local area and is an avid outdoorsman.

Welcome, Rob!

Our Culinary Division just was awarded a 7 year accreditation and “Exemplary Program” status by the American Culinary Federation. Only 35 schools in the country have this. In addition we have been granted full accreditation for our Culinary Arts Specialist program as well!

Thank you to our team of outstanding chefs who make the IOT Culinary programs great!

Clovis, CA – Rick Bayless, award-winning chef-restaurateur, cookbook author, and television personality will be on campus at the Clovis Institute of Technology Friday, July 23rd.

Fresh off of his trip to Washington D.C., where he was the guest chef for President Obama’s State Dinner at the White House, Bayless will be on campus from 8:00 to 11:00 a.m. to conduct a cooking demo, answer some questions from IOT students and guests, and promote his new book, “Fiesta at Rick’s,” which hits shelves this July.

The IOT campus is excited to welcome Bayless, star of the PBS show “Mexico: One Plate at a Time,” to the campus as a special treat for their hard-working culinary students and to the Clovis culinary community in general.

Bayless, who specializes in contemporary Mexican cooking, is known not only for his TV show and top restaurants in the Chicago area, Frontera and Topolobampo, but also for his catalog of cookbooks (“Fiesta at Rick’s” is his seventh).

In 1996, “Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant Flavors of a World-Class Cuisine” won the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ (IACP) National Julia Child “Cookbook of the Year Award.”

The New York Times praised him as a writer who makes “true Mexican food user-friendly for Americans,” and Time Magazine hailed him as a “cookbook superstar.”

Additionally, Bayless has won several awards over the past two decades.  In 1995, he won a James Beard Award for “National Chef of the Year” as well as an award for “Chef of the Year” from the IACP.

In 1998, the Beard Foundation honored Rick as “Humanitarian of the Year.”  In 2002, Bon Appétit honored him with the “Cooking Teacher of the Year Award”.

“Chef Bayless is world-renowned for his authentic Mexican cooking style, and we feel honored to have him visiting our campus in anticipation of the release of his new book.  We hope that he can impart some of his vast and impressive knowledge of Mexican cuisine to our faculty and students,” said Clovis Campus President Joe Haydock.

“I am excited to spend some time with some of California’s future culinary stars at the Institute of Technology.  I always look forward to meeting those who share my passion for the culinary arts, and I understand that IOT students have that in abundance.” said Bayless.

He can be sure that they won’t disappoint.

Our Roseville campus has recently added the following new employees in their admissions department…

Jenae Ohland, Michael Maldonado, Carmen Chiorean, and Rowena Marlang are all new admissions representatives.  Congratulations!

Congratulations to Clovis Business Division Director Kim Posey, who completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Public Administration at National University on June 28, 2010!