Promise Made on a Couch During Cancer Treatment Led Jeff Williams to Culinary Arts Outstanding Graduate Recognition
Sixteen years ago, Jeff Williams was lying on a couch, unable to swallow, his taste buds largely gone from radiation treatment for head and neck cancer. The Food Network was on. He made himself a promise.
Not only would he one day taste the food he was watching. He would learn to make it.
Williams will graduate in May with his Associate of Applied Science in Culinary Arts from Owens Community College as the program’s outstanding graduate — more than three decades after earning his diploma from Whitmer High School and embarking on a life that took him through the U.S. Air Force, a 20-plus year banking career and a cancer diagnosis that quietly reordered his priorities.
“It’s never too late to do what you love,” Williams said. “I woke up hating what I did. And I just decided — no, I’m going to do what I love to do.”
The decision to pursue culinary wasn’t impulsive. Williams, a Toledo native, enrolled at Owens in fall 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, 27 years removed from his last classroom. His first semester was entirely virtual. He worked full-time in business lending at a local financial institution and could only take a few classes at a time. Eventually, he made the leap into the culinary industry, accepting a pay cut from where he’d been in banking.
“Just taking a few classes a semester and elongating my time at Owens gave life an opportunity to throw wrenches into my degree goals,” he said.
Two instructors helped him navigate it all. Chef Robert Wagner provided grounded career advice during the transition from banking to culinary. Chef Amy Morford served as a consistent sounding board and ultimately provided the lead that landed Williams his current position.
He is now the personal chef for the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Toledo, a role that came together through a connection that traced back to Morford. His audition for the job was a dinner he cooked for the bishop and a group of visiting priests.
“I have full control of the menu,” Williams said. “I can make pretty much anything I want. Every day, I go in happy to do what I do because I’m doing what I want.”
It’s a long way from a feeding tube and a Food Network marathon. But Williams sees the line connecting them clearly. The cancer, he said, taught him that life is short and that chasing comfort over passion is a trade-off with real costs.
“We aren’t where we are now without that experience,” he said. “You realize life is short. And it made me realize you have to go out and get the things that you want.”
When he enrolled at Owens, Williams was certain he’d open a restaurant one day. That plan has been replaced by something better, he said — a job he genuinely loves, with autonomy, creativity and a table of enthusiastic diners.
He plans to stay right where he is for the foreseeable future.
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Published May 2026