Chef Don Carlson Retiring

Posted: Monday, October 7th 2013 at 4:32 AM

One of HRM’s faculty members will be saying goodbye at the end of this semester. Chef Don Carlson is going into retirement after 25 years as executive chef and lecturer at NAU’s School of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

“It’s different and exciting,” Carlson said. “I’ve got some crazy plans; I’m selling my house here in Flagstaff and buying a houseboat."

Although looking forward to starting this new adventure in his life, Chef Carlson says he’ll miss his students and the school.

“NAU’s been great; they’ve been really good to me,” he said. “I mean, it shows since I’ve stayed here for 25 years, doesn’t it?”

The change of scenery will be nice though. He plans to live on his houseboat along the Tenn-Tom Waterway, a picturesque location popular among boat enthusiasts and also used as a transportation highway.

“I have a brother who’s 16 months older than I am, and he got me hooked on the idea about 6 or 7 months ago,” Carlson explained. “We started talking about retirement and that’s what he wanted to do so we’re actually going to be doing that in different boats, but in the same area.”

NAU SHRM will surely miss Chef but everyone wishes him good luck in his journeys.

From Chef, October 2013

Yes, I did sell my house, we did buy a boat, and we are living aboard, but no puppy as yet. We're 95% settled in so far and loving it. The boat is 65'X16', 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, with a full size kitchen, and a great open floor plan. It has twin V-6 engines and turns out 380 HP, with less than 500 hours on the motors. The electronics on the boat are amazing. It has radar, river GPS, 2 ship to shore/ship to ship radios, rear backup camera, and a very high-tech master control panel. This boat even came with 3 flat screen TV's.

We brought it 65 miles down river to Midway Marina in Fulton, Mississippi from the marina where we bought it, and really enjoyed the trip. (Went through 3 locks along the way.) We had it taken out of the water for the survey and while it was on land the owner paid to have both lower drives rebuilt and new propellers installed. I attached some pictures, one of them shows the boat out of the water during the survey.

Anyway, we're happy and healthy and having a great time in our new adventure.

Chef (Captain Don)

Chef Carlson with his students
Categories: chef don carlson chef retirement faculty spring 2013