Valarie Costanzo

Valarie started her career as a Home Economics teacher at South Philadelphia High School and taught there for 10 years. Realizing this was not for her forever, she started putin' on the Ritz catering and then went on to start Andiamo, a special events planning business doing many street festivals including the Avenue of the Arts Festival and parts of the Thanksgiving Day parade and Welcome America. She was then recruited by Wood Dining Services as a marketing manager with the Phila Zoo and Mystic Seaport Museum as a part of her account list and spent some time in the world of dining service, finally ending as the catering director at Rowan University. 

At the end of her career, Valarie went complete circle and was back with the school district of Philadelphi as the Director of Culinary Arts programs, supervising 15 programs in the Career and Tech Ed schools and several comprehensive high schools, planning curriculum, purchasing books, and steering the programs to fit the needs of the fast growing hospitality industry in Philadelphia.