Alex Erdmann

I am a hospitality, culinary, foodservice, and workforce education leader with more than 30 years of experience spanning higher education, cruise operations, healthcare foodservice, culinary education, workforce development, and industry partnership building.

As Dean of Valencia College’s School of Hospitality Management & Culinary Arts, I lead academic and workforce programs serving approximately 5,300 annual enrollments, supervise full-time and part-time faculty and staff, manage approximately $3.0M in annual operating and lab-fee budget responsibility, and support campus operations, community outreach, advisory engagement, and university transfer pathways.

My work focuses on connecting education with industry. I helped build and open the Walt Disney World Center for Culinary Arts and Hospitality at Valencia’s Downtown Campus, transitioning programs into a 50,000-square-foot learning environment with seven instructional labs. I have developed partnerships with major hospitality, culinary, lodging, restaurant, tourism, theme park, nonprofit, and workforce organizations to create student experiences, scholarships, competitions, internships, demonstrations, guest speakers, and career pathways.

Before Valencia, I held leadership roles with Disney Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean/Celebrity Cruises, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Baker College/Culinary Institute of Michigan, Lexington College, and Washburne Culinary Institute. These roles included large-scale 24/7 foodservice operations, facility development, culinary lab design, curriculum development, faculty and staff leadership, food safety, hospitality service standards, healthcare foodservice, cruise operations, sustainability, and revenue-focused service operations.

My work focuses on hospitality excellence, student success, workforce development, community impact, and real-world experiential learning.