From Oklahoma to California

Long before I coached leaders, I was a hospitality girl through and through. This is the story of how I packed up my car after college, left Oklahoma, and ended up in the Napa Valley—my first leap into the unknown, and the beginning of learning how to lead, host, and grow.

From Restaurant Dreams to Culinary School

Summer 2002.  I had just graduated college.  Bachelors in Hotel and Restaurant Administration from Oklahoma State University.  The previous summer I had interned for a James Beard Award winning chef in Madison, Wisconsin (that’s another blog post) and had realized that I needed to learn about food and cooking, if I wanted to run a restaurant.  The dream when this all started was to own my own restaurant…someday.  9/11 had happened between those summers, and hospitality jobs were not really prolific, so I applied, was accepted and figured out funding to go to the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone for a 9-month certificate program called the Advanced Culinary Arts Program (ACAP for short).  The program was an abridged version of the associate degree they offered in Hyde Park.  The course was not advanced. We were all basically novices. It was the first year that the program was offered, and I think they changed the name to “Accelerated” the following year, which is probably more appropriate.  There were only 7 students in the class.  All of us had recently graduated with a degree in something culinary adjacent…restaurant management, nutritional sciences, dietetics. The idea of this program was not to produce a chef, but to help you understand how one thinks, be able to speak with them, understand culinary terms and techniques and give a broad understanding of a variety of cuisine. All of this sounded quite essential to one who would one day open her own restaurant.  So that was my next step. 

The Move to California

I found a room for rent in a retired couple’s home in St. Helena, CA on Craig’s List.  I rented it site unseen.  My parents insisted on driving out to California with me…too dangerous to do on my own, so we caravanned in our Nissans out of Oklahoma, through Kansas to Colorado, up to Wyoming and across…Utah, Nevada, then into California.  Mountains, desert scruff, the great salt plains, more desert, golden California hillsides, then vineyards and up route 29 which is dotted with all of the wineries and restaurants that I’d only read about in magazines before this.  I remember the excitement and the awe at how beautiful and picturesque the Napa Valley was.  We turned off 29 in St. Helena and the road up the hill snaked steeply.  Near the top of Spring Mountain Road, we took the correct forks, as directed by my new landlord and pulled up.  All of my possessions crammed into the trunk of my car.

First Impressions of Napa Valley

We were greeted by Bev, one of the homeowners and she told us to wait and we’d unload in a few minutes, we can just look around first.  The house was absolutely enchanted.  They had a little vineyard on their property, a wine cellar, a little theatre room, a chef’s kitchen.  Beautifully carved custom wood accents decorate the doorways and the molding.  Through the dining room you step through French doors that put you on a deck that looks out over Mount St. Helena and the vineyards below.  Bev follows us out with glasses of wine and a cheese plate and we sit at the dining table on the deck, which is covered by climbing vines of bougainvillea, and we look out over the view.  The next year of my life in this place not like anywhere I’ve been before fills my brain. 

A moment that changed everything

My mom sits across from me as I take it all in and she sighs, “Oh, Katie…you’re never coming home.”

And as is the case with moms…she was right.

That moment on the deck—bougainvillea blooming, wine glasses clinking, the world wide open—marked the beginning of my life in California and the start of doing things that scared and stretched me. I didn’t know it then, but that move would shape how I think about risk, growth, and creating a life that feels both intentional and expansive.

Now, I help leaders make their own brave moves—with clarity, humor, and heart.

(Curious about your own leap? Let’s talk.)