WHITE SULPHUR SPGS- Not long after graduating from Greenbrier East High School, Jared Masters headed to South Florida and worked in restaurants to begin his culinary career. It was there that he decided he was extremely interested in cooking and looked at it as a possible career path.
Fast forward several years later, and Jared has solidified a spot on the Team USA Culinary team for the 2028 Olympics.
When he returned to Greenbrier County, Masters apprenticed at the Greenbrier Resort under Master Chef Rich Rosendale, where there was a heavy influence on competition and refined classical cooking.
Masters moved to the Greenbrier Sporting Club in 2014 and was promoted to Sous Chef at the Summit Restaurant. He then became the Summit Chef de Cuisine in 2017 and stayed there for three years.
Masters headed the French Goat in Lewisburg as the executive chef in 2020, and after two years there, he went back to the Sporting Club as the Executive Chef as well. That is where he is currently employed today.
Masters credits his interest in the Culinary Olympic Team to all the way back when he started at the Greenbrier.
“I was in over my head, but they gave me a chance,” Masters said.
“When I got started, I kept hearing other chefs talking about different chefs that were on Culinary Team USA, from the hotel at the time. I started researching it and was blown away by the talent and drive these chefs had and that I could be working right next to them. At the time, Eddie Tancredi and Drew Garms had been involved with the team and helping train the apprentices. Richard Rosedale had been on the team as well and was the Executive Chef,” he explained.
As time went on, Masters would always question himself if he could ever be as good as those other chefs one day. He was eventually accepted into the Greenbrier Culinary Apprenticeship where he trained constantly on platter work, cold food, and hot food. He also honed his skills such as fine tune organization, discipline, determination, and how to see the showings through. Masters did all this while being employed full time as well.
Now, as Executive Chef at the Sporting Club, Masters continued to have those same thoughts echoing in his mind, but this time, about seven months ago, he decided to go for it, and he has the full support of his management team.
However, the amount of dedication just to being able to make the decision to try out is a grueling process.
“For a competition like this, you can’t just wake up one day and say I’m going to try out for the team. You must be cooking every day at a high level and very disciplined with organization. For me this has taken many years to lead up to. Seven months ago, I made the conscious decision to try out and I’ve practiced nonstop,” Masters stated.
Due to his past, and working with extremely talented chefs, Masters feels he is prepared for the challenge.
“I was fortunate to work with other chefs that had made the team years back, and looked up to them and wondered if I could achieve it. Making the team has been a long-term goal of mine professionally, and I’m very excited to cook alongside my teammates on the world stage,” he said.
Even though the Olympics are still about four years away, it does not mean there is time to not improve every day.
“We will practice individually and once a month together as a team in different parts of the country.
It is not often that someone from such a small community can enjoy this amount of success in their field, but Masters understands the community will be behind him every step of the way.
“Yes, having the community support will be great,” Masters said.
“There have been many people that have helped me achieve this goal along the way, and I couldn’t have done it by myself,” he concluded.
We will periodically check in with Chef Masters during his journey to achieving his Olympic dream.
