Having grown up working in his family’s various foodservice operations, Richard Girouard has extensive experience in the restaurant and hotel industry. He is a 1972 alumnus of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration. While studying at Cornell, he was appointed research chef by Pleasant Valley Wine Company for the Great Western Wine tasting and banquet facility. He also had the responsibility for arranging tours of the Taylor Wine and Great Western Wine facilities for all VIP’s and guest lecturers that were visitors or guests to the Cornell campus.
In 1972 he went to Newport Beach, California where he assumed management of Catering Unlimited which was the second largest off site catering firm in Southern California. It catered to corporate events and provided food service for the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. In February of 1975 he oversaw the sale of Catering Unlimited and returned to his hometown of Westport. He managed several Sheraton hotels until he decided to establish New England Consulting, a food facilities consulting firm in 1978. In 1992 he merged with Klein Associates, a business and restaurant brokerage company that was established in 1972.