Photo By Staff Sgt. Lauren Behn | Evaluators with the Joint Culinary Center of Excellence and distinct guests award...... read more read more
By Staff Sgt. Lauren Behn
111th Public Affairs Detachment
Nebraska Army National Guard
MEAD TRAINING SITE, Neb. -- Nine Nebraska Army National Guard culinary specialists from the Omaha-based Company I, 700th Brigade Support Battalion, and supporting Soldiers competed for a national title, March 7-9, 2025, during the final stage of the 57th annual Department of the Army Philip A. Connelly (PAC) Culinary Competition at Mead Training Site, Nebraska.
For the Soldiers, this marked the third and final phase of the competition after they won both the state and regional competitions earlier in the year. The final Department of the Army round matched the Nebraska Soldiers against similar teams from Arizona, Iowa and Maryland.
The PAC Competition was established in 1968 to recognize excellence in Army food service and is named after Phillip A. Connelly, a leader in the Food Service Management Corp who worked diligently throughout his life to promote professionalism in food service in both civilian and military services. Competing units are selected by the state and then compete at the regional level.
The top four units proceed to the DA-level competition. In the Reserve and National Guard categories, dinner and breakfast are evaluated, consisting of line-item A-rations. They are evaluated on categories ranging from field food safety and headcount operations to effective use of manpower, as well as the appearance and attitude of the food service personnel.
Staff Sgt. Hanah Schmall, culinary noncommissioned officer for I Co., said she saw an improvement in team readiness and mission confidence as her unit completed each level of the competition. She added she felt confident in the team’s approach to the final leg of the prestigious competition.
“This team has come a long way, especially from state to regionals,” Schmall said, whose first drill with her unit was during the state-level Connelly competition. “At regionals, we knocked it out of the park. We kind of knew by the end of it we were making DA-level without being told.”
Now, as she led many of the operations leading up to and on the day of the competition to ensure everything ran smoothly, Schmall reflected on all of the work that her team had completed to be ready.
“There’s so much that goes into it–not just for us, but for the whole unit,” said Schmall. “You’re so stressed by the time that the competition comes that you don’t want to do it. So, when it’s over, you can finally breathe and realize it was actually fun.”
Iowa Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 4 Shawn Kiene was one of the evaluators for the competition. With more than 30 years of culinary arts experience, Kiene now works at the Sustainment Training Center at Camp Dodge, Iowa, where he teaches and trains culinary specialists. He said the amount of preparations the Nebraska Soldiers put into their work was evident early on.
“So far, the team is doing really good,” Kiene said. “They’ve shown that they know what they’re doing, and that’s impressive.”
Sgt. Jonah Adams, the unit’s Containerized Kitchen Trailer (CTZ) operations supervisor, was a good example of the amount of expertise on hand during the competition. Along with his military trianing, he also attended Metropolitan Community College for Culinary Arts.
“Culinary education just helps me understand how things are made, especially when we’re making A-rations, you know, when it’s fresh,” Adams said. “Understanding how food works and how it’s processed makes it quite easy to translate here.”
That knowledge is particular precious during the Connelly Competition where cooks are required to follow strict menus that allow for little deviation from the recipe card. The menu remains the same across all levels of competition to ensure fairness. The competition’s program objectives are to improve the professionalism of food service personnel and provide the best quality food service to supported diners.
“The most stressful part is always meeting the standard. There’s so much information that you have to get out of the training manuals and the field manuals, and you have to get that perfect,” Adams said.
Kiene, one of the three evaluators at the competition, says there is more to overseeing the process than just critiquing their work.
“Here, it’s not just to teach and train but to also observe what they’re doing. We’re at the Department of the Army level,” said Kiene. “There are only four states that reach this level, so Nebraska is already a winner to get this far.”
Now that the physical evaluation portion of the competition is over, the Nebraska culinary specialists will have to wait until April to find out how they did. With any luck, a championship may be in store.
| Date Taken: | 04.05.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 04.05.2025 14:18 |
| Story ID: | 494656 |
| Location: | MEAD, NEBRASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 123 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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