Next year will be the Year of the Party, says catering guru Mike Roman, who predicts a flurry of millennium fetes starting as early as July 4. Roman, founder of CaterSource, a trade group in Chicago, says the catering business is expanding at a 12 percent annual rate in the current flush economy, and that's not counting millennium bashes. At a small company, the catering director might work 16-hour days, doing everything from menu planning to setting up chairs. At larger firms, the director sells jobs and supervises staff. Hotels and restaurants are looking for catering directors, too, for new off-site catering divisions.
Experts say yes corporate entertaining and weddings are a caterer's bread and butter.
The planner makes meetings and conventions more cost effective. Prospects for such jobs are growing because businesses have found that planners produce a better caliber of confab. Inc. All rights reserved.