Chef Tim has been working in restaurants since he was 13 years old (29 years). With the humble beginnings as a bus boy trying to make enough money to attend camp that summer, he worked his way up through the ranks and was cooking and running kitchens within the first year and has not looked back.

Chef Tim was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, went to college as a music and theater major, ending up a journalism major, all the while continuing work in various restaurants. In 1999, he relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to attend the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute.

From working in family run, mom and pop operations, running fast food pizza shops, to preparing meals for some local Pittsburgh celebrities such as Mario Lemuix and Sydney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, as well as several of Pittsburgh’s local news anchors, Chef Tim has worked in some of the best restaurants Pittsburgh has to offer.

He also did a stint as an internet radio show host in the early 2000′s on RGIN Internet Radio with shows Move Over Martha, Casual Elegance, and Food 411, shows which featured on air cooking demonstrations via web cam as well as cooking, entertaining and decorating tips.

Sustaining a knee injury in 2006 and having to undergo surgery, he took a break from the kitchen to recuperate and after a stint at a sit down job at a telemarketing firm, he found himself in Southern Florida near the end of 2007 and working full time with his partner building Soap Alchemy… a Hand Crafted, Natural Soap Company. In 2008, they relocated back to Western PA and are enjoying modest success as Soap Alchemy has begun to appear in retail locations throughout the Eastern US, the US Virgin Islands and Bermuda.

Not able to stay out of the kitchen for too long, in the same year, Chef Tim attended the Culinary Business Academy in Atlanta, Georgia to learn as much as he could about the Personal Chef Industry and became a Professional Personal Chef, renewing his passion for cooking and for making people smile with a contented sigh and a belly full of healthful and delicious food, and took the leap from the restaurant kitchen, where he basically decided what to put on the menu, to your kitchen, where you get to decide what he puts on your menu and in your refrigerator!

Chef Tim is a Certified Personal Chef® and an instructor with the Culinary Business Academy. He is also a founding member and current President of West PA Chefs, a group of independently owned and operated personal chef services located in the Western PA and Eastern Ohio region.

In his spare time, apart from making and selling soap and traveling the country to various trade shows and conferences, he enjoys rock climbing, yoga, baking cookies, gardening, reading cookbooks and spending time with his partner Jordan and their multitude of cats on their farm just North of Pittsburgh… He also teaches at the New Castle Community YMCA during some of their Little Chefs Family Cooking Classes.

~ “All good cooks learn something new every day.” ~

Julia Child, American Author, teacher, TV cooking icon