Executive Pastry Chef, Corporate Baking
Katherine Donaho-Wessman currently holds the corporate position of Executive Pastry Chef for Station Casinos, Inc., charged with overseeing the Company’s Bakery Commissary, providing baking, pastry and dessert items for the company’s many food venues, including 107 restaurants, catering operations and other miscellaneous outlets. In addition to production responsibilities and its requisite cost control, quality control and recipe development, Chef Wessman also provides the training, job enrichment and leadership for the 30 Baking Team Members in her charge.
Prior her position with Station Casinos, Chef Wessman was Executive Pastry Chef for Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, again taking responsibility for the comprehensive planning, training and leadership of this 3700 room, AAA Four Diamond resort’s baking and pastry operation. The hotel featured 13 restaurants, 19 snack bars, convention and catering services, in-room dining, a 12,000 seat event center, a 6 restaurant Food Court and a 2 million square foot convention center requiring the services of Chef Wessman’s baking and pastry staff of 42 bakers, helpers and sous chefs. All told, Chef Wessman was responsible for successfully providing for approximately 18,400 dining guests each day.
In the years leading up to her role in the grand opening of Mandalay Bay in 1999, Chef Wessman, an A.C.F. Certified Executive Pastry Chef, perfected her skills for six years as Lead Baker of the Excalibur Hotel and Casino’s Pastry Department, and as Bakery Manager of LaFrenz’s Bakery in Harvard, IL as well as numerous other cooking, decorator, baking and pastry positions throughout Vermont, Wisconsin and New York.
An avid competitor, Chef Wessman has earned the America Culinary Federations Gold Medal and Judges Award for her Pastry and Centerpiece work in Las Vegas, and the Grand Prize and Gold Medal for her centerpiece work in the Professional Chefs Association’s “Pastry Masterpiece Competition”. In 2007, Chef Wessman was asked to represent the ACF Western Region for Pastry Chef of the Year. Additionally, her baking and pastry work has been recognized with gold, silver and bronze medals since 1990. Chef Wessman was awarded the position of Pastry Chef on the ACF Las Vegas Regional Culinary Team 2004, which represented Las Vegas in the International Kochkunst Ausstellung (IKA), also known as the International Culinary Olympics, held in Erfurt, Germany in October of 2004, where she was awarded two Silver and one Bronze medal.
