School of Culinary Arts Faculty

Chef Jan Bandula, C.M.P.C.

Senior Pastry Chef Instructor
Certified Master Pastry Chef

Chef Bill Carlile

Chef Carlile is a Pastry Chef Instructor, with more than 17 years' experience as a pastry chef in the culinary industry.

Chef Glen Heick

Chef Heick is an Adjunct Chef Professor, and also the Culinary Manager of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Chef Rich Hoffman

Chef Hoffman is a Culinary Instructor with more than 20 years of experience in cooking and baking.

Chef Melissa Hopkins

Chef Hopkins is the BIC Purchasing Manager and oversees all purchasing courses. She is a member of the ACF, as well as the American Purchasing Society.

Chef Ben Simpkins

Chef Simpkins teaches Introduction to Culinary Arts and Food Protection and Management. He is also a member of BIC's Program Advisory Board.

Chef Patricia Robertson

Chef Robertson is an Adjunct Instructor at BIC, teaching the level one Baking and Pastries BP150 and a level two class of Cake Decorating and Candy Making. 

Chef Michael Volpe

Michael Volpe, CEPC, is a Pastry Chef Instructor at Baltimore International College.

Jan Bandula, C.M.P.C.

Jan Bandula is Baltimore International College's Senior Pastry Chef Instructor, and one of only 13 certified Master Pastry Chefs in the United States.

A native of Poland, Chef Bandula began study culinary arts at the age of 14, and worked in Vienna, Austria before coming to the U.S. in 1974.

Before he became an instructor at BIC, Chef Bandula served as executive pastry chef at the Cross Keys Hotel, the Baltimore Hilton Hotel, and the Pimlico Hotel, all in Baltimore, Maryland. He has created specialty desserts for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, made a birthday cake for former Maryland Governor William Schaefer, and created a welcome cake for the Baltimore visit of Pope John Paul II.

Chef Bandula has been honored by the Baltimore Culinary Salon, the American Culinary Federation (ACF), and the ACF's Judge's Panel. He was named Chef of the Year by the ACF Greater Baltimore Chapter in 1988 and 2004, and served as Chapter President from 1998 to 2002. Since 2002, he has held the position of Chairman of the Board for the ACF Greater Baltimore Chapter, and was recently featured in the Baltimore Sun newspaper's "Inspiring Minds' series about inspirational college instructors.

William Carlile

William Carlile is a Pastry Chef Instructor at Baltimore International College.

Chef Carlile received his baking certificate from the American Culinary Federation, and his Associate of Applied Science in Baking and Pastry from Baltimore International College.

Chef Carlile has over 17 years' of experience as a Pastry Chef in the culinary industry. Throughout his career, he has worked as an assistant pastry chef, head cake finisher, and eventually pastry chef at many establishments in both Baltimore and Massachusetts. In Baltimore, Chef Carlile was pastry chef and bakery manager for Donna's Bakery. He was also the pastry chef and manager at Bakery on the Common and Restaurant Associates: Harvard Business School, both located in Massachusetts.

Chef Carlile lives in Germantown, Maryland.

Glen Heick

Glen Heick is an adjunct Chef Instructor at Baltimore International College, and is also the Catering Manager of Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Chef Heick is a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America with an associate's in Occupational Studies. He also has an associate's degree in Applied Science with a major in Culinary Arts from Paul Smith's College in New York.

His career started in the Finger Lakes region of New York, working for a variety of high-end restaurants and learning from some of the best chefs in the area. After many years in New York, Chef Heick returned to Baltimore, where he worked at Tersiguel's Country French Restaurant in historic Ellicott City, MD. He worked his way up from line cook to Sous Chef. Later, Chef Heick left Tersiguel's to work with one of Baltimore's largest off-premise caterers.

Chef Heick currently lives in Baltimore, and enjoys spending his time with family, fishing, mountain biking, and of course, cooking.

Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is a chef instructor at Baltimore International College School of Culinary Arts.

Although he started his culinary career in Ellicott City, Maryland, Chef Hoffman graduated from the Southeast Institute of Culinary Arts in St. Augustine, Florida. He then entered into a three-year apprenticeship at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.

Throughout his 20 years of experience, Chef Hoffman has worked at hotels, resorts, restaurants and country clubs in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Florida. During this time, he has worked with 15 Certified Master Chefs or Certified Master Pastry Chefs. He was the Executive Chef at the four-diamond Bavarian Inn in West Virginia, and at both the Trapeze Restaurant and the Turf Valley Resort in Maryland. He was also the Executive Sous Chef at the Baltimore Country Club.

Chef Hoffman has won the Maryland Rockfish Competition twice, and won Best Of Show at the ACF Nations Capital Competition. He is also a 16-time medalist in various ACF-sanctioned competitions, and was accepted to try out for the USA culinary Olympic team.

Melissa Hopkins

Melissa Hopkins is the Purchasing Manager at Baltimore International College. She oversees BIC's purchasing classes.

Chef Hopkins graduated from Baltimore International College in 1991 with an associate degree in cooking. She also earned a liberal arts associate degree from Morrisville Agriculture and Technology School in Morrisville, New York.

She started her career while attending BIC, working in the delicatessen at the Tremont Plaza Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland. She later took on the positions of restaurant cook, assistant restaurant manager, catering deli manager, kitchen manager, and was eventually promoted to purchasing manager. She has also worked for the Hunt Valley Marriott and the Valley Country Club, both in Maryland. In 2004, Chef Hopkins joined the BIC faculty.

Hopkins is an active member of the American Culinary Federation, as well as a member of the American Purchasing Society.

Ben Simpkins

Ben Simpkins is a Chef Instructor at Baltimore International College, teaching Introduction to Culinary Arts and Food Protection and Management. He is also part of the College’s Program Advisory Board, which brings industry professionals in an advisory capacity to help guide curriculum and programs.

Chef Simpkins graduated in 1999 at the top of his class from Johnson and Wales University in Rhode Island, where he earned an Associate in Applied Science in Culinary Arts.

Early in his career, Chef Simpkins worked at the Sheraton Norfolk Waterside in Virginia Beach where he studied under award-winning Chef Scott Bernheisel, the owner of The Lucky Star Restaurant in Virginia Beach. In 2002, Chef Simpkins became Executive Sous Chef at the Westin Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio. He later returned to Virginia Beach and served as the Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort’s Executive Chef before he became Executive Chef at the Towson, Maryland Sheraton Baltimore North Hotel.

Simpkins has won various awards throughout his career. Most recently, he won 1st place, People’s Choice, and best wine paring for the 2006 Mid Atlantic Taste of Elegance. He also participated in the 2005 Mid Atlantic Taste of Elegance, which consisted of only 10 handpicked chefs from Maryland. Chef Simpkins was also honored on the front cover of Mid Atlantic Restaurant Digest in May 2005 for participating in the Hope for Morrope Foundation, which helps build schools for children in Morrope, Peru. In addition to competing, Chef Ben Simpkins is actively involved in numerous community outreach foundations in the local area such as the Believe in Tomorrow Foundation and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Patricia Robertson

Chef Patricia Robertson is a 2009 Graduate of Baltimore International College, with an associate in baking and pastries. Her current position is an Adjunct Instructor at BIC, teaching the level one Baking and Pastries BP150 and a level two class of Cake Decorating and Candy Making. 

Chef Robertson has had 13 years of experience in the Industry with her passion being in cake decorating and pastries. Her first bakery job was working for a grocery chain in Columbia, Missouri and was lead cake decorator for two years. She was then hired to work as an Assistant Pastry Chef at "The Upper Crust”, a bakery franchised out into three locations in the 7 years that she worked there. While working there she worked part-time as the Pastry Chef at “Trottoria Stada Nova” and also Aramark at Stephens College in Missouri as the Pastry Chef. Chef Robertson began doing an independent wedding cake business and was published in “Columbia Magazine” six times, and once in Kansas City’s “The Knot”. The Upper Crust restaurant offered her the Pasty Chef position, which Robertson stayed and worked for one year. She has been certified by Collette Peters of Collette’s Cakes of Manhattan in Advanced fondant and also in Gum paste from the Wilton School in Chicago. 

Robertson’s next move was to the University of Missouri where she worked as a level four cook and did prep for banquets and caterings as the Assistant Pastry Chef. She worked in all areas of the kitchen at the Alumni Center. This is where Chef Robertson decided that she would like to seek a degree in culinary and found Baltimore International College. 

After graduating from BIC, Chef Robertson’s teaching position at BIC is exactly what she was hoping to achieve when she came to the college, and she looks forward to teaching the “future” the art of baking and pastries.

Michael Volpe

Michael Volpe, CEPC, is a Pastry Chef Instructor at Baltimore International College. He is a CIA- Hyde Park graduate with extensive professional experience. Chef Volpe was previously the Executive Pastry Chef at Indiana Live! Casino and oversaw the entire pastry operation.

Prior to going to Indiana, Chef Volpe worked as a pastry chef at Borgata, Hotel, Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, NJ. Chef Volpe’s earlier working experiences have led him to work at Café Munding a traditional pastry shop in Innsbruck, Austria and at the upscale and world-renowned Payard Patisserie & Bistro in New York City. One of Chef Volpe’s first professional experiences was as Pastry Chef of Clipper Cruise Lines, a 150 passenger cruise ship that traveled the East and West coasts of the United States with several other regular trips throughout the Caribbean and south America.    

Most recently, Chef Volpe advanced his career and skills by earning the title of Certified Executive Pastry Chef, issued by the ACF in the summer of 2008 and has currently become an ACF test evaluator for practical examinations. Chef Volpe has won numerous awards including a bronze medal in the ACF pastry mystery basket category in 2009, a gold medal for a chocolate showpiece and a silver medal for a special occasion cake at the Salon of Culinary Art in New York City in 2008. In 2007 he was awarded Third Place at the Cacao Noel Pastry Exhibition in Philadelphia and was a Finalist in the US Pastry Competition in New York City. Chef Volpe is continuously working on upgrading his certifications and competition experience and one day hopes to compete at an international level.