Chef Joey Nerenberg
Nancy McMonigal
Chef Joey Nerenberg
What
Joey Nerenberg—founder, principal, and executive chef of Infusion Culinary (a creative cooking school)—has been cooking his entire life. Joey is our head Chef-Management Instructor and coordinates all curriculum and chef-instructors. He’s the lesson plan, content, and food guy.
Where
After college, Joey spent more than 10 years working at American Express Financial Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He first worked in technology support and management and then moved to product development training, creating more than $500 million in new product sales. He then specialized in professional development training, converting a $2 billion field sales organization into a successful profit center. Leaving American Express as a director, Joey returned to his native Southern California (San Diego).
 Why
When Joey discovered his culinary calling, he moved to Honolulu, Hawaii to study at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific. In addition to becoming a competent chef, Joey cultivated a love and appreciation for Hawaiian and Pan-Asian regional dishes. After completing his culinary arts education in 2003, Joey returned to San Diego and became a chef-instructor at the Art Institute of California, San Diego, teaching there from 2003 through 2005.
Joey’s new career and continued passion for cooking, combined with his past corporate work experiences, led to his creation of Infusion Culinary, a unique cooking school, in 2005. While working in the corporate world, Joey found that he could achieve consistent project success by focusing on customer service and operating profitability while coordinating all involved parties. As a chef, Joey realized that these skills are directly applicable to teaching people to become competent cooks. In fact, Joey found the professional culinary process to be almost identical to that of a corporate project or campaign but on an abbreviated timeline. Instead of occurring over a number of months, cooking transpires in a matter of hours! It was this realization that led Joey to create Infusion Culinary as an innovative way to learn essential cooking techniques and creative skills.
What Else
Joey received his Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California, San Diego, his MBA in Management Information Systems and Operations Management at the University of Minnesota, and his culinary education at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific.
When not working or in the kitchen, Joey spends time with his wife and two children and takes frequent trips back to Hawaii to visit friends.
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Nancy McMonigal
What
Nancy McMonigal, founder and principal of Locus—a company specializing in the creation of training and marketing materials—co-founded Tasteful Learning Initiatives and the What’s Cooking Programs with Joey in 2005. The collaboration with Joey on logistics and training materials for What’s Cooking has provided exciting opportunities and growth for the entire Locus team.
Where
Prior to opening the doors of her own company in 2001, Nancy worked as an interactive media producer at various pharmaceutical and medical communications companies, including two large West Coast advertising agencies, Bozell Healthcare and McCann Healthcare West.
 Why
Nancy’s first interest in communications began in high school, where she
developed a love for information technology. This curiosity, coupled with early forays into stage and video production, led her to seek a degree in broadcasting and video/film production in the mid-1980s. As Nancy graduated from college, she found the multimedia environment ripe for the picking, and dove head-first into interactive and marketing communications in the 1990s and early 2000s. Since education of self and others has always been one of her priorities, blending sales training with marketing seemed a logical next step in Nancy’s career progression into the 21st century. For the past five years, Nancy has devoted her professional career (and many weekends) to developing sales training and development materials for burgeoning and dynamic companies.
What Else
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Nancy ventured to California to work for Lifetime Medical Television in the early 1990s. After surviving both the Los Angeles riots in 1992 and the Northridge earthquake of 1984, meeting her husband, and realizing that she was hooked on the weather, she decided to call Southern California home! Nancy enjoys life in San Diego with her husband Emmet and their dog Sammy.
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