Common Threads’ Chef Instructors are professional chefs and teachers, trained in Common Threads’ unique curriculum, who teach the students at each of our thirty sites throughout Chicago, as well as in Los Angeles, Miami and Washington, DC. Chef Instructors nurture and mentor our students, while leading them through the prep, cooking, clean-up and, of course, eating of the three hands-on ethnic recipes each week!
Rae Ellen Gutrich
Deborah Hornbeck
Curtis C. Jones Jr.
Douglas Lammie
Alexander Martin
Alekka Mills
Gonzalo Rodriguez Moran
Nicole Putzel
Betsy Robinson
Maggie Swanson
Samantha Vick-McGill
Geraldine Vo
Cheryl Williamson
Wendy Zacca
Betsy Robinson
Chef Instructor
Betsy Robinson received her
Hotel and Restaurant Management Degree from Oklahoma State University and her
Professional Cooking Certificate from Kendall College in Illinois. She has
always loved the food business having owned and managed hotels, restaurants and
bakeries throughout her career. But her emphasis now is in sharing her
knowledge through teaching wellness and healthy cooking. In addition to
teaching for Common Threads, she teaches healthy cooking classes for
individuals, and at a Doctor's Wellness Center and also at a Chicago high
school where she was involved in implementing a scratch kitchen under the
guidelines of the National School Lunch Program