Students at Whitcomb Continuation High School get glimpse

Every professional needs their tools and at Whitcomb Continuation High School's Career Day, a variety of guest speakers demonstrated the tools of their trade on Feb. 28.

For Owen's Bistro executive chef James Kelly, his chef's knife is his most important tool.

"I use this for almost everything," Kelly said. "I like this and a serrated knife."

The self-taught chef and owner of the Chino restaurant spoke to the students about his journey in the food industry, which began when he was a kid growing up around his grandparents' Italian restaurant in Chicago. The family moved to Covina when Kelly was in fifth grade and he cut his teeth as a busboy at the Velvet Turtle in Covina.

"I actually applied as a waiter but they only gave me a job as a busboy," Kelly said. "I thought, OK well I'll just go in there and show them I can work hard and they'll raise me up, and that's what I did."

At 21, the budding chef teamed up with his sister to open a sandwich shop in Chino. For 14 years the siblings worked 12-hour days making soups, salads and sandwiches by hand.

"I cut every slice of meat, I had a giant muscled shoulder from doing all the slicing," Kelly said. "As we got busier I started hiring some people but it was a struggle for a while."

Working hard was key to his success, he emphasized. Without his early efforts and sacrifices, Kelly said he never could have built Brown Bag It Cafe up to be the king of lunchtime in Chino, which led to him being invited to open a fine dining restaurant in downtown Chino.

The chef's message of hard work was reinforced as he told the students about the staff he hires and mentors. "I really enjoy training people that are dedicated, that are hardworking.

"One of my most important cooks in my kitchen right now, he didn't go to culinary school," Kelly continued. "What he did was he rode his bike and stopped by the restaurant every day and he would ask my wife, `So you need any help today?' and she'd say no, and he'd come back the next day.

"After a week of this she broke down and I met him. He was nice and respectful, so I said, `OK, I'll try you out for a couple of days, washing dishes and cutting potatoes.'

"He's been with us ever since."

In a nearby classroom, Glendora Police Department officer Marty Barrett impressed the teenagers with a description of the former obstacle course in the physical agility portion of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's SWAT team qualifier.

"It was designed by a doctor to completely oxygen-deprive your body," Barrett explained. "You ran 100 yards, climbed a 70-foot brick wall, climbed down a manhole into the ground, crawled through an 8-foot tube, came up through a manhole, crossed monkey bars, dragged a 200-pound dummy 15 feet, climbed through the upper window and back down a lower window on a wall, climbed a 10-foot chain link fence, ran a quarter mile, redid the whole obstacle course again, ran another quarter mile and, at the end, climbed on top of a 5-foot wall and balanced on the top of the wall across 50 feet.