By Jamie Biesiada
For the past 30 years, NAF’s Academy of Hospitality and Tourism has been serving high school students across the country, educating them about the travel industry. The academies have acted as a feeder system for companies in the industry, providing a pool of potential future employees with the base knowledge and desire to work in travel.
NAF, formerly known as the National Academy Foundation, is a national network that works with high schools to develop career-focused academies, a school within-a-school approach. In addition to the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism, the NAF also offers programs centered on finance, information technology, engineering and health sciences.
At the end of 2016, NAF celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism’s launch. Initially, it began with academies in New York and Miami high schools.
In the past three decades, it has grown to 93 Academies of Hospitality and Tourism that serve nearly 11,000 students in 20 states.
The academy was launched with support from Marriott International and the American Express Foundation, both of
which still support it.
According to Dana Pungello, director of communications for NAF, the academy’s courses fit into the regular high
school schedule. Students take four academy courses throughout their time in high school, and complement their education with workplace learning experiences.
For example, a student in an Academy of Hospitality and Tourism program might take courses in event marketing, customer-service delivery, hospitality marketing or geography. Then they work to get experience in an actual businesses, including completing an internship.
“They actually get out into the field and they experience relating and connecting and networking with business professionals through job shadows, mock interviews,”Pungello said. “They have professionals help them with resume writing, they do a lot of site tours of different facilities. Then it culminates with … a paid internship in high school that becomes a real career pathway for them as they develop beyond high school, into college and beyond.”
The academies are designed to make students aware of career opportunities that are available to them, she said, and to enable them to explore those opportunities and network in the field. NAF’s philosophy is to help all its students become future ready.
Pungello said that NAF academies typically serve an “underserved community,” as 82% of its students are categorized as low income.
The academies have an impressive success rate: Pungello said 89% of academy students go on to college, and they have a96% high school graduation rate.
“If you give everyone a chance, they can succeed,” she said. “They can contribute to the economy, they can contribute to the travel industry and they can lift their families up to have family-sustaining wages to secure their lives.”
Graduates from the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism have gone on to a variety of careers in the travel industry, Pungello said. For example, a number work in hotels as general managers.
Some, such as Brenda Urias, end up in other companies in the travel industry.
Urias is a 1998 graduate of Colonial High School in Orlando and its Academy of Hospitality and Tourism. The summer between her junior and senior year in high school, she completed an internship at AAA and she’s been with the company ever since. Today, she is the manager of travel-program marketing and contract management at AAA Travel and AAA National.
“Growing up, of course I didn’t come from a family with money,” Urias said. “It was so easy for me to have been forgotten in the system, and I think this program really changed that for me.”
After graduating from the academy and high school, Urias, while working for AAA, completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Central Florida, majoring in hospitality and tourism management, and earned a graduate degree in marketing from Webster University.
She is now a board member with NAF, a position she’s held for more than 12 years.She was named NAF alumni of the year in 2012. Her alma mater, Colonial High School, has a scholarship in her name, the AAA Travel Colonial High School Alumnus Brenda Urias Scholarship, given to a Colonial student in the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism each year.
Urias frequently speaks with students currently enrolled in the academy. She said she tells them her story and offers career advice.
The academy, she said, “was such a guiding tool for me, and it opened doors for me that other students did not have. I’m very grateful for it, and at the time, I didn’t realize just how much this program was giving to me until I got out of school. I realized, wow, this program really did set the course for my career, and it really opened doors that [would not have been opened] otherwise. It’s gratifying to now do that for other students.”