Almost four years
ago, Bill Moss '79 made a life-changing decision: he chose to quit
his job as director of public affairs at American Express
and fulfill his dream of becoming a chef. Three years
later, he opened his own gourmet take-out store.
“The food business was always
something that I wanted to get into,” he says.
“My grandfather was one of the first in the frozen
food industry, and my plan after graduating from Union
was to join my uncle in the business. But when the
business was sold during my junior year, I decided to go
into retail.”
Upon graduation, Moss entered the
executive training program at Abraham and Straus, the
sister store of Bloomingdales, and went on to become
sales manager of the linen department. After a year, he
returned to school for an M.B.A. at Syracuse University,
concentrating in marketing management. He graduated
during the recession of the early 1980s and spent almost
a year hoping to find a job in marketing or advertising
before he took a job at a public relations agency.
He worked at two different public
relations firms, handling media placement, special
events, and launches for a variety of products and
services. He helped market some of the first add-on
floppy disk drives for IBM computers and handled
publicity for Polygram Records artists ranging from opera
star Kiri Te Kanawa to then-emerging rocker Jon Bon Jovi.
After a year and a half as public
relations manager for a large insurance company, he
joined American Express in 1987 hoping to move into
advertising and marketing. But after remaining in various
public relations and communications functions for eight
years, he decided to change careers. “I said to
myself, 'You only have one chance to live. If you want to
really do something, do it.'”
So he quit his job and enrolled in the
French Culinary Institute. “French cooking is very
highly structured, and the techniques you learn are
applicable to virtually every other type of
cooking,” Moss explains. “It teaches you the
basic skills to get a job in the industry. I needed
something to jumpstart my career in a new industry, and
this was the best way to help me do that.”
He completed the course in six months
and stayed on at the institute as an assistant chef
instructor. For more than a year, he worked in a gourmet
food shop in his hometown of Scarsdale, N.Y., while
teaching in the evenings.
Soon it was time to take the plunge and
start his own business. Moss and his wife, Madalyn, moved
to Florida to be closer to their families, and he spent
two months searching for the perfect location for his new
store. He found it in a shopping center in Lake Worth.
Six months later, he opened M. Gourmet, a take-out food
store that specializes in rotisserie chicken, gourmet
entrees and side dishes, soups, salads, and specialty
foods.
Now nearly four years into the food
business, Moss is thrilled that he decided to make the
career change. “I love it. It's a lot of fun,”
he says. “The amount of work is mind-blowing, but I
think that's true for anybody who starts a business.
“I'm doing what I've always wanted
to do. People who come into the store are delighted. At
American Express, a lot of my job was explaining
problems. Now people come into my store and ask, 'What's
cooking?' “
Moss says the change was perhaps the
most difficult decision he has ever made, but it's been
well worth it. “I'd hate to think how I would feel
years from now if I'd never taken the chance. If you
really want something, you'll find a way to make it
happen.”