Hedeker grew up working in her family’s Gladstone Park Bakery on Chicago’s northwest side. After graduating summa cum laude from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., which included a pastry externship in Switzerland, she began her professional career as assistant pastry chef at Chicago’s Swissôtel. She later opened Alliance Bakery, which was named Wicker Park’s “Best Retailer of the Year-2000.”
Hedeker joined the faculty at Kendall College in 2004. Armed with a master’s degree in social work from the University of Chicago, she has represented Kendall as a volunteer working and teaching at Chicago Lights Urban Farm since 2009 and has served on the farm’s advisory board since 2011. Additionally, Hedeker works with Thresholds, the largest and oldest provider of mental-health services in Illinois, on its “Mother” project—a therapeutic baking program to help new mothers with relationship issues. And, she assists Chicago House Agency with a work-therapy program that helps employment-challenged individuals learn new behaviors and skills so they can earn and keep meaningful jobs in foodservice.
“Speaking on behalf of the administration at Kendall College and the entire faculty in the School of Culinary Arts, we could not be more proud of Chef Hedeker’s latest achievement,” says Dean Renee Zonka, RD, CEC, CHE. “Today, Kendall College is even further distinguished among professional foodservice-training programs nationwide thanks to Chef Hedeker’s extreme talent and dedication to teaching her craft coupled with her extraordinary vision for helping others grow personally and professionally.”
Founded in 1918, the RBA, a 501(c)6 not-for-profit trade association, is committed to the success of the retail baking industry. RBA certification raises professional standards and verifies the knowledge, skills and abilities professional bakers bring to the marketplace while increasing job opportunities and income for certified bakers and decorators. For more information, visit www.retailbakersofamerica.org/certification-program.