Ricco Casanova

Rocky Path to a Bright Future

Ricco Casanova
A.S. in Restaurant Management and A.S. in Culinary Management
Florida Community College, Class of 2007

Ricco Casanova was born and raised in New York City. His parents separated when Ricco was four and his Dominican-born mother raised him and his siblings alone. It wasn’t an easy childhood, but it was a loving one. Working two low-paying jobs just to pay for their three-bedroom apartment, Ricco’s mother still managed to send her children to private school in order to give them the best education possible. Ricco had almost finished high school when the stress of the city and their cramped apartment convinced him to move to Miami, where his father had relocated. There he graduated from Coral Gables High School.

But his father had financial struggles of his own, and so Ricco went straight to work after graduation. After several dead-end jobs, he opted for the security of the military, joining the Navy. He succeeded, receiving several commendations for his volunteer work and achievements, but the highly structured environment began to feel restrictive and after seven years, Ricco left the Navy to pursue a college education. He would be the first in his family to do so.

He initially moved to Tampa, where much of his family had relocated. He knew he wanted a degree in restaurant management, so he started looking at culinary programs. Ricco had taken classes with Florida Community College through the Navy, and compared to that experience, he found the local community colleges’ culinary programs to be lacking, and the private colleges to be too expensive.

So it was back to Jacksonville and FCCJ. “The staff and faculty are phenomenal!” Ricco enthuses. “Never once have I heard that they’re too busy to help me, or have treated me with anything less than total and complete respect. And the facilities are state-of-the-art and totally resemble real world scenarios.”

Ricco expects to graduate with dual associate degrees in Restaurant Management and Culinary Management by next summer. He plans to transfer to Florida International University in Miami and pursue a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management. He also plans to complete the university’s Entrepreneurial Academy program, in order to further his career goal: to be chef and owner of a Miami-style Latino restaurant here in Jacksonville.

Even though Ricco’s path to college has been difficult, he doesn’t see it as an obstacle. “All I need to do is think of my warrior mother, who single-handedly raised five children on her own in the roughest and toughest neighborhood of Manhattan. I saw how hard she struggled, and almost instinctively knew that I had to push myself just as hard or even harder if I were ever to become something great.”

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