After our very successful summer restaurant season in 2022, we found ourselves entering a new era for
our school. We welcomed our largest class yet, and it seemed that we had a lot of momentum in many
other facets of our business as well. Thus, to maintain this newfound success, we realized that we must
rely more than ever on strategic student recruitment. To accomplish this, we needed to create a new
position that would focus on many things, but primarily on getting new students in the door who would
fully fit into and benefit from the school’s unique program. Mary Eberts immediately came to mind. She
is a local, she has ambition, and she has a long history with our school, dating back to our first year of
operation. Besides recruiting, her new role includes facilitating funding for our students, managing our
service operation, developing promotional merchandise, and much more.
Mary grew up just a couple blocks from our school. Being community minded is second nature to her.
She graduated from Northern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in finance and risk
management and now lives in Rudyard with her fiancé, Zack Steikar, and their two-year-old son, Henry.
Mary started in late November 2022 and has been an amazing asset to our team. She has successfully
recruited more students, more quickly, than ever; our merchandise program is off and running, and we
are on our way to getting a brand-new website.

Lori Reich Secor Administrator, brings extensive knowledge in business management, to the Les Cheneaux CUlinary School team. Her and her family have owned and operated two local businesses. Outside of work, she can be found at CrossFit classes in Pickford and spending time with family and grandchildren.

In January of 2014, Zachary Schroeder was chosen from a refined roster of professional chefs from across the country with extensive management and leadership backgrounds, to launch LCCS’s unique program and restaurant. Particularly notable was his relentless devotion to culinary excellence, with particular focus on the farm-to-table fine dining experience. A native of Michigan’s Eastern Upper Peninsula, with French Canadian heritage, he fully relates to its rich history and wealth of natural resources, having grown up appreciating all that the woods and waters and farmlands have to offer, and thus the simplicity of nature as it relates to foods.

Zach attended Great Lakes Culinary Institute in 2007, taking courses in baking, garde manger, cookery, restaurant management, sanitation, menu writing, food costing and purchasing. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Hospitality Management at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan, in 2011.

While in school, he worked as line and prep cook at Hanna’s Bistro and then Red Ginger in Traverse City, Michigan, and Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel; then at Upfront and Company in Marquette, Michigan, and finally as sous chef at Bayside Fine Dining on Drummond Island in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

After graduating, he became Executive Chef and General Manager at H2O in Battle Creek, Michigan, and then Executive Chef and Food and Beverage Director at Moose Ridge in South Lyon, Michigan, before accepting the position of Executive Director and Chef at LCCS.