Salt Lake
Community College has named Angela Brown, executive editor of SLUG Magazine,
and Manoli Katsanevas, owner of Manoli’s restaurant, as SLCC’s 2018
Distinguished Alumni award recipients. Both will be recognized during SLCC’s
commencement ceremonies May 4 at the Maverik Center in West Valley City.
Angela H. Brown
In junior high, Brown was already an
aspiring entrepreneur, starting a landscaping business so she could afford to
buy records. Her other passion early on was photography, so, she chose to take
concurrent enrollment classes at Salt Lake Community College, where she earned
an Associate of Applied Science degree with an emphasis in photography. With
supportive parents, she had the freedom to have control over her education,
focusing on music, photography and writing.
After SLCC, she worked for a few
companies that left her “unfulfilled,” and she decided to figure things out,
take some risks, make some mistakes, fail, learn from it and try again. She
thought about leaving Salt Lake City in search of a more vibrant music and arts
culture, but chose to pursue her dreams in Utah. She decided she wanted to make
Salt Lake City her home. To that end, one of her greatest professional
accomplishments is creating positive change in the city she loves. Brown worked
her way up at SLUG Magazine to become owner, publisher and executive editor,
helping highlight and support music, skiing and snowboarding and the arts in
Utah. The magazine has won many awards under her leadership; with Brown herself
receiving the Josephine Zimmerman Pioneer in Journalism Award from the Society
of Professional Journalists. As an outgrowth of SLUG Magazine events, Brown is
founder and executive director of 501(c)3 nonprofit, Craft Lake City, whose DIY Festival is now in its 10th year.
Brown is a graduate of Goldman Sachs
10,000 Small Businesses program at SLCC, which proved pivotal in helping see
herself as a leader, gaining confidence to take risks and create an actionable
plan for growing her business. She had the honor of being the graduate speaker
for her cohort.
Manoli Katsanevas
When his Greek
immigrant uncle Nick Katsanevas, along with his sister and her husband, started
the first Crown Burger in Utah in 1978, it set in motion a career trajectory
for Manoli Katsanevas that would one day lead to opening his own restaurant in
Salt Lake City. The early influences began at home when his mother cooked traditional
Greek foods such as spanakopita, dolmathes and pasticcio for huge family
gatherings. His father and another uncle started the second Crown Burger, and
when Katsanevas was 13, he started working in the family business. He loved the
restaurant business then and knew in high school an office job wasn’t for him –
he wanted to cook and maybe own a restaurant.
Katsanevas
enrolled at Salt Lake Community College’s Culinary Institute after graduating
from Skyline High School and by 2009 earned his Associate of Applied Science
degree. An adherent to the “tough love is the best love” way of learning, he
recalls being challenged by culinary Associate Professor Leslie Seiferle. She
reminded him of his family in the industry as someone hard working, skilled and
very nice and supportive. His time at SLCC helped Katsanevas hone his path in
the industry at a price he could afford. He learned the fundamentals and basics
that he uses in his career every day.
In 2015, after
adding places such as Fleming’s, Smith’s Bistro and Café Niche to his resume,
Katsanevas opened Manoli’s, on 900 South in Salt Lake City. His approach is
described as a reinterpretation of traditional Greek cuisine, with an emphasis
on local and seasonal ingredients. The food and dining experience is racking up
awards and accolades, from Zagat and Time magazine, to multiple local review
sites and periodicals. He loves being in the kitchen and is still there several
times a week. Katsanevas, only 30, values hard work and advises others who are
contemplating their own career paths to follow their passion and that success
will follow.
