Meet Paula Houde: The Trotter Project’s Executive Director

Meet Paula Houde, The Trotter Project’s Executive Director! Paula is one of the co-founders of The Trotter Project, and has been an integral part of TTP and Trotter’s history for decades. 

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting Paula Houde, you’ll recognize she has the perfect, warm energy for welcoming you into a new journey—whether that’s the meal of a lifetime at the late, great Charlie Trotter’s, or embracing you as a member of The Trotter Project family and all we do to continue Charlie’s legacy. As Executive Director of The Trotter Project and one of the organization’s co-founders, Paula is leading the charge to feed the futures (and initiatives) of the TTP family, from student scholarships, to growing gardens for community nutrition and education, to supporting our alumni to lead the next generation of scholars. Learn more about Paula’s story, including her many decades working with the Trotters, below.

Watch Paula’s story here.

Paula! I'm so excited we get to chat. This has been a long time coming, and it's truly one of the best ways for us to help wrap up our 10th year of The Trotter Project. So, let's hop into your background. What made you so excited to get into the hospitality industry? 

I had started working in the hospitality industry basically from the get-go. I lived in Seattle throughout high school, and worked in coffee houses and restaurants all throughout high school and college.

I worked at some of the top restaurants in Seattle, like Ray's Boathouse, The Wild Ginger, and just fell in love with it. I went far away to college and attended Purdue University.

I had a brief stint in Arizona where I actually managed a furniture store. Didn't like Arizona and moved back to Seattle and went back to work with The Wild Ginger. And then started managing stores for Seattle's Best Coffee. I had several locations in Seattle that I turned around after graduating college.

Then I had the chance to come back to Chicago and Seattle's Best Coffee moved me out here. I had the opportunity to see Chef Charlie Trotter speak at the University of Chicago, and for some reason, I just knew at that moment after listening to him speak to this group that I needed to work for this man. The next day, there was a classified ad in the newspaper and I saw they were hiring.

I sent in my resume, I interviewed, and I never looked back. I just needed to be at that restaurant after so many opportunities that came my way.  

What did Charlie say or what was the overall feeling you got from him that made you say, “I have to leave working with coffee and go be with him”?

At the time, in 1997, the restaurant had been open for 10 years by then, and before you got hired, you had a day of observation. You came in before any offers were made and you saw what it was like. Being surrounded by the people that were at that restaurant and watching what Charlie used to do … I knew I needed to be a part of it. From top to bottom, between the back of the house, front of the house, what was going on was just an incredible thing to witness. They were at the top of the world back then. And I just wanted to be so much a part of it. 

It wasn't to say I worked for Charlie Trotter, ‘cause I'll be really honest, I didn't really understand who he was yet. I knew he was a famous chef, but after working for some phenomenal chefs in Seattle, it didn't register to me that he was THE top chef in the world at that time, until obviously several weeks, months later, when you start really paying attention to the press and things like that. So I was in it just to gain experience—the people, the quality of product, our staff, our dishware, our flatware. It was just amazing. It was truly an experience. It's hard to put into words. 

And so what was the role that you saw in classifieds that you originally interviewed for and landed? 

I originally started off as the hostess. I managed the front door for a little while. And then I think people realized I could do a little more and Charlie would push more topics on me.

So I ended up working not only just managing the front door, but I also was part of the reservations team. And this was back before the internet, this was back before we had OpenTable, any of that. We did have computers, I’m not that old. But people would call and we made the reservations. I also helped open Trotters To Go. 

I also started managing a lot of the private parties in the studio kitchen. I was one of his assistants, but not one of his big ones. Part of the thing that we did was when Charlie started offering the after-school Excellence Luncheons to students. I was involved in helping organize that, as well as shifting that room, getting it turned over for when we did big parties in that room after. What didn't I do at Charlie Trotters is a better question—besides being a chef.

You were the ultimate event planner. 

I was, and it was a lot of fun. I don't know how to put some of it into words because it's surreal.

Yeah, there were hard days. Everybody's heard the stories. Charlie was the first to do these kinds of luncheons—it started as one day a week, we would bus in kids from all different places, but  he'd also take people off the street and  provide a meal for them as well.

He was always extremely generous, knowing what he had was not normal. And serving these kids is one of the greatest things with The Trotter Project that we've done. We did reintroduce the Excellence Luncheons with chef alumni John and Karen Shields at their three-star Michelin restaurant, Smyth. 

One of the women that's a principal of one of the schools we work with was part of the original Excellence Luncheons, as a student, way back when the restaurant was open. And so we know that some of these kids that have gone through these programs have really gone far and done amazing things.

The goal behind it has always been, “You can achieve this.” Yes, it's hard work, but it's not exclusively hard. Anyone can do it if they want to. And that was always part of Charlie's mission. It's what we've tried to do with The Trotter Project for the last 10 years, is provide opportunities that make it easy for people to see outside of their box.

Yeah. And so how many courses would these kids have? 

Seven or eight. Yeah, they did the full menu that we did. Charlie did not believe in editing. He wanted them to have the full experience. And each course would be presented by a chef that would talk about their past and how they got where they are. 

I won't lie—it was taxing on everyone, especially if we had another big party of 20, 25 people right after these kids came in to do the same experience. It was definitely asking a lot of everyone, but in the end, I think the reward was definitely worth what it was.

And some of these kids, it washes over their head. You don't reach everyone. We know that, but the ones you did, it was magic. It was the best. 

Let's talk about the start of The Trotter Project. You have been so integrated into Charlie Trotters and the Trotter family for so many years. With Charlie's passing 10 years ago, what made you say I have to be one of the co-founders of The Trotter Project?  

Chef's death was pretty traumatic for us all. It was such a shock. I remember exactly where I was when it happened. It's one of those types of events in your life. To lose someone of that magnitude that was so of your own life, let alone of others, was really quite remarkable, but not in the good way.

When we all got together for his funeral, I met some people that I hadn't met that had been working at Trotters before. We all thought we needed to do something. Chef Homaro Cantu was a huge proponent of that. He said, we will not let any of Charlie's life go to waste and let's take the philanthropic leg of what he did and go forward. And I knew I wanted to be a part of it. 

It just naturally was the next thing to do and we just wanted to see what we could do. At the beginning, it was really culinary arts focused because we thought that was what the need was. We held several camps and cooking classes and things like that, trying to get better nutrition in the minds of some of these young students in areas that are food deserts, that don't see what we see every day. 

I was very humbled by many experiences because what I take for granted, what happens every day in my life, does not happen in 90 percent of the world. It was a very good big growth and learning experience for myself, and Derrek Miller was a huge part of it because he was working with Omar at the time—we just all came together as this incredibly cohesive team, wanting to just keep pushing the positive messages forward.

And it definitely has. Talk to me about the growth over the last 10 years. What initiatives are you most proud of, or what are some of those memories that you can share with us? 

I think some of the things that have been the most exciting is being in the classroom with the kids. We work with K-12 kids. The littles always have a piece of my heart—they just get so excited. Especially when they see new things. 

One of the biggest projects that we did was in Englewood when we redid the garden at the Montessori School of Englewood. We had United Way involved and we had 50 people building planter boxes and moving dirt and soil, and then watching it years after grow. This garden just exploded and the kids getting involved—that has a chunk of my heart.

The first Excellence Luncheon we did at Smyth was incredible. We did a couple of six-week summer camps with kids with professional chefs that came in and they would have competitions at the end. It's seeing these kids evolve and really understand knowing where their food comes from. 

The other thing that's really grown and blossomed is our relationship with Farmer Lee Jones. We've got our scholarships now that have really taken off over the years. We started the scholarship program in 2017, and we've given over almost $500,000 away at this point.

We've seen these kids graduate, and the thing that's making all of us proud is they're coming back. They want to give back. We're building this new alumni program and mentorship program. 

We shifted things during COVID to emergency food relief. It was a big wake-up call when we all realized when COVID hit, these kids weren't getting fed except for once a day at school. And when you shut the schools down, these kids were starving, and we received grant money to feed people nutritious, healthy meals.

Unfortunately, being able to continue to do that was not sustainable. So we had to come up with other solutions. We’ve worked on a few other gardens in the Austin area, and are really trying to get people to learn how to grow their own food. That's a big part of our programming, is getting people to know that they can put a couple pots on their front porch and grow some things that can sustain them. So it's always a work in progress.  

So there's a ton going on. We've got scholarships in our three areas, Agricultural Sciences, Hospitality and Culinary Arts. We've got programming with kids. And then we're also focusing on bringing our alumni back in the fold, as well as looking at gardening and cooking programs. What do you really want to see in 2025 and beyond that we can talk about today? 

I definitely know our scholarship program is going to expand.

That has been something that's really resonating with people and wanting to help us help others. I think we've seen some really great success stories of some of the kids that we started helping and what they're doing in their lives, which only goes to show what else can be done with The Trotter Project. I think some of our stuff will be a little more fluid this next year because they've got some incredible ideas.

I can't talk very much about them yet because they're still on the drawing board, but the ideas that are flowing are just amazing. And I would love to see our garden programs continue and our classroom teaching. We have some really wonderful supportive chefs that like to get in the classroom and work with these kids.

There's opportunities for some community development beyond just helping the kids. One of the things that we learned is it's great to help these kids, but there are a lot of these parents that are like, what about us? So expanding a little bit into some community programming in areas that make sense to them.

We did a class this last fall with some adults and it was really special because they were learning. You know, everybody knows how to read a nutrition label, but what does it actually mean? And if you're looking to eat for your health, which is a big proponent of what Charlie always did, because we all know, food is medicine.

We can’t wait to see what comes next. We're 10 years in. What would Charlie say?  

I think he'd be really proud. Especially with some of the kids that he's seen come in and then come back to us. The support that Charlie's family has given us—we’re very blessed as an organization to have them as our backers.

I think he would be really pleased to see that we're carrying on his legacy in a positive, bright light. “You aren't doing well unless you're serving others.” I can't remember what his direct quote was, but it's something along those lines.

And that's how he always went through life and that's how we've gone through life. Like I said, it carries into all of our personal lives as well.  And of course, he would want us to do more. 

A huge thank you to Paula for all she does each day to continue The Trotter Project and its legacy! To learn more about our scholarships and other programming, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date and check out our donation page here.