Tom was born in New York and is one of six children and we grew up in Southampton, Long Island. At the age of 12 I started working at a popular seafood restaurant in the Hamptons called The Lobster Inn, of which was the place where all the who’s who met and I immediately got hooked for the hospitality business. I have worked in the hospitality business for over 40 years and still love it! I met and married a Jersey girl named Angela and I am blessed with two sons and a daughter Steven, Carly and Jason.
My love of cooking helped put me through private High School, Mercy High and college , the University on New Yok, Delhi . I received a degree in hotel management with a minor in marketing. While attending college I was lucky enough to belong to an organization called HSMA, Hotel Sales Marketing Association of which I was on the Executive Board. The organization traveled to New York City, we stayed at many of the greatest hotels of which gave us the opportunity to speak to the executives of those hotels. The part of the hotel business I was most intrigued with was the Catering Sales department.
Fortunately I received many job offers before leaving college and upon graduating worked for many of those hotel chains I met throughout my college years. After working for the Denver Hilton in downtown Denver Colorado I worked as manager of their restaurant and became the Executive Steward. This was my first taste of the event business and I fell in love. My next opportunity was working for Four Seasons Hotel chain of which I was part of the opening crew for the Houston Center Hotel which was connected to the Convention Center in Houston. I worked for Four Season Hotels in many capacities throughout those years but I feel this was where I learned the art of the perfect event.
After many years working for Four Seasons Hotels I moved back to the New York Metro area to open up my own off premise catering and event planning business. My first business was Panache Event s which was connected to many movie and television show. I was lucky enough to start a second event business Crème’ de la Crème’ in which we did many social events for the New York New Jersey Metro area.
I currently have been a General Manager for some of the most prestigious Banquet facilities in the northern New Jersey area for the past 25 years. I have been with Nanina’s in the Park for the past 10 years and look forward to many more events.
