Chelsea Gaudette started cooking professionally at the age of eighteen.  Her first job in the kitchen was for federal firefighting catering, working long hours throughout the firefighting season receiving just 2 days off a month.  She used her production experience under extreme conditions to develop her own mobile food catering business.  Using a combination of innovative menu design, and high-volume catering experience she successfully executed menus at festivals with 100,000 attendees.  Fueled with the desire to develop her professional skills, she received two applied science degrees in 2015.  Her degrees are in both Baking and Pastry Arts and  Culinary Arts from Southwestern Oregon Community College and Oregon Coast Culinary Institute.  Chelsea knew early on she wanted to be an educator and OCCI facilitated this by allowing her to teach local high school culinary classes to fulfill her externship hours. 

After receiving her degrees, she decided to focus on farm to table catering.  Always enthusiastic to further her professional development she earned her Permaculture Design Certificate through Oregon State University.  She quickly began implementing permaculture practices in her garden to support her wedding catering food truck, The West Fork.  Chelsea one day plans to open a wood-fired bakery and country café.  She has completed professional barista and coffee roasting training at Bellissimo Coffee in Portland, Oregon and a wood-fired baking program at Fire Within in Denver, Colorado.

Teaching and learning are Chelsea’s passions.  She enjoys mentoring her students, always trying to infuse her curriculum with community minded practices.