SARTAIN AT 2002 CORDON ROUGE CONFERENCE AT THE FOUR SEASONS AVIARA IN CARLSBAD,CA.

“I felt like the world’s strongest man — revived, almost angelic, clear-headed,” said Sartain. Quite a rebound considering he had just survived a ten hour surgery to remove a massive tumor from his brain which was, fortunately, non-cancerous.
The downside was that he was penniless, facing mounting bills and on the verge of losing his business of ten years — the American Tasting Institute. “Most of my staff had bailed, thinking I was about to die. Of course, I don’t blame them, but thankfully two assistants stayed on.
“So, remarkably, I was sent home in three days and miraculously I traveled with my wife, Rosimai, to Chicago six days later to host a thousand people at one of our tastings during the National Restaurant Show. I was a bit grey and fragile,” Sartain said.
The slow process of rebuilding Sartain’s health, life and business began. “I was determined to make a total comeback. I contacted my clients, slowly rehired a staff, paid my bills and by the grace of the Lord, made it,” said Sartain.

SARTAIN INTRODUCING ELLEN FLORA OF DOMAINE CHANDON AND THEIR WINES

Little did Sartain know that within six years his culinary program would grow into a network of 35,000 chefs, be hosting events all across America and be rewarding Gold Medal product awards to over three hundred companies.
“Our big break came when I hired a young sales executive named Marc Oldham. He just knew how to translate my program with a whole lot of chutzpah to the retail grocery world. We zoomed,” said Sartain.
In 2001, six years after his near-death experience, Sartain was approached by a business broker saying he had two potential buyers for the Institute and its program. Sartain agreed to meet with them and one emerged, John Parker, an entrepreneurial investor. “He tracked us for six months, negotiating along the way, and we finally settled on my original price tag of 5 million dollars,” Sartain said.

Sartain returns with “an international organization centered around wine education and a domestic network of executives to focus on.”

JESSE SARTAIN WITH WIFE ROSIMAI SARTAIN AND CORDON ROUGE EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT NANCY SMITH.

Sartain has a lot to be thankful for. The business was transferred over on September 7, 2001 — four days before the World Trade Center disaster. “Boy, was the timing right. Once again providence was on my side,” he said.
After taking a brief vacation, Sartain was restless. He had plans sixteen years earlier to form an international organization centered around wine education and a domestic network of foodservice executives to focus on everything that is foodservice including wine, spirits, equipment, tabletop and technology. Thus Cordon Rouge World Society and the American Executive Leadership Conference emerged.
Sartain started in the U.S. in late 2001, targeting quality purveyors and matching them with multi-unit and high-volume companies nationwide.

“Purveyors need patience and courage to call on large chains and
high-volume accounts — but the rewards certainly are there,” Sartain said.
Sartain then mounted a state-of-the-art search engine to identify major buyers by name and has planned two national conferences
— one in Chicago the day prior to the N.R.A. Show, and the fall conference in Las Vegas at the Venetian Hotel.
Long before he directed the expansive programs of Cordon Rouge World Society and the American Executive Leadership Conference, Jesse Sartain had been active in a wide range of professional and personal pursuits.
Born in Seattle and raised in Hawaii, Sartain started his career at age eight in a professional kitchen as an apprentice to his father, Chef Lee Edgar Sartain. At age eighteen, his father asked him not to pursue a restaurant career because of the work demands involved.
Sartain enrolled in communications courses in college and thus a media and marketing career was launched (with cuisine always in the wings).

JESSE AT CARNEGI HALL SAYING FAREWELL TO THE AMERICAN TASTING INSTITUTE

Since that humble culinary apprenticeship, he:

• Served as a State Campaign Chairman
for John F. Kennedy and Robert
Kennedy while a student in Hawaii.

• Worked for CBS News as a stringer
for Walter Cronkite and performed
production work for the Sinatra family
as a cameraman and director.

• Fulfilled appointments as aide-de-camp
to a Governor of Hawaii (William
Quinn) and a Secretary General to the
United Nations (U. Thant).

• Served on the national staff of “Hair”,
the musical on Broadway and across
eight North American cities.

• Produced ethnic music concerts and
film festivals in Hawaii including a
Hawaiian music festival in a volcanic
crater attended by 20,000 islanders.

• Led the restoration project of a fifty-
year old Japanese Buddhist temple on
the Big Island of Hawaii for two years.
Raised dairy goats and organic
vegetables.

• Established Buddhist centers on three
Hawaiian Islands. In the process,
became a student of Tenzin Gyatsho,
the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet.

• Served as a Divisional Publisher for
Gannett and Knight-Ridder.

• Worked as an editor for various
publishers including Simon and
Schuster (New York), Trade Publishing
(Honolulu) and Levin Publishing (San
Francisco).

• Coordinated the cuisine of three steak
and seafood restaurants in Hawaii as
Corporate Chef of Cahoon
Restaurants, Inc.

• Organized a thousand cooking classes
in ten North American cities as
Culinary Director of The Cuisine
Group.

• Served as National Director for Chefs
in America, 1985-1993.

• Honored by Les Tocque Blanches for
culinary leadership.

• Honored by the James Beard
Foundation, Who’s Who American
Food & Beverage.

• Member, Order des Canardier, as
designated by the French government.

• Active member, National Press Club,
Washington, D.C.

“Purveyors need patience and courage to call on large chains and high-volume accounts — but the rewards certainly are there,” Sartain said.

Jesse Sartain has traveled over two million miles domestically in the last sixteen years dedicating himself to leadership and innovation in the foodservice industry. His future goals include more international travel on behalf of Cordon Rouge World Society and more time with his Brazilian wife at their home on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

JESSE AT HOME IN SOLANO COUNTY WITH BELOVED WIFE ROSIMAI