Wilfried Iskat, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Phone #: (407) 903-8074
Email Address: wiskat@mail.ucf.edu

Wilfried Iskat was born in Vienna in 1939 and grew up in Germany and in Austria. After a formal pastry baking apprenticeship, he worked as cook and patissier in Austria for seven years before emigrating to the United States in 1961. In the New York metropolitan area, Iskat worked as a pastry chef and cake decorator and in 1966 earned a high school equivalence diploma before attending a local community college. In 1968, he began a bachelors degree program and continued on to earn a masters degree at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. To finance his studies, he managed a summer resort in the Adirondack Mountain area of New York, taught vocational high school and adult education food courses and was a dining unit assistant manager at Cornell. Upon graduating in 1972, Iskat was sent to Asia by Inter Continental Hotels (IHC) to train Indonesian hotel executives at the first international hotel in Jakarta. Later, at the Inter Continental Manila, he became an internal consultant and wrote food and beverage task descriptions. Subsequently promoted to Director of Skills and Craft Training for IHC Worldwide, at company headquarters in New York, he traveled extensively and produced annual workshops and seminars for all major hotel department heads on four continents.

Iskat joined the International Division of Holiday Inns in 1978 as Director of Training Europe and was based in Frankfurt, Germany. His responsibilities were quickly expanded to include coordinating and conducting all training in Africa, the Middle East, Pacific Asia and finally South and Central America. Working first from Frankfurt and then from Holiday (Inn) City World headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, (and Holiday Inn University in Olive Branch, Mississippi) he was responsible for the training and human resource development of more than 250 international hotels ,directing field based human resource directors in Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Frankfurt, Brussels and Miami.

Iskat left Holiday Inns in 1984 to return to the New York metropolitan area where he did independent consulting with Embassy Suite Hotels, Maxim de Paris Suite Hotel in Palm Springs and Kings Supermarkets in New Jersey. From 1985 to 1992, he created and developed the hotel and restaurant program at Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey.

During his tenure in New York as training director for Inter Continental, and later while teaching at Raritan Valley Community College, Iskat attended New York University's School of Education and researched the Service Delivery Act, earning his doctorate in the Department of Technology Education.

In 1992, Iskat accepted a position as Director of the Hotel and Tourism Program at Schiller International University (SIU) in Dunedin, Florida, and was soon thereafter appointed the Dean of the International School of Tourism and Hospitality Management for all of the SIU campuses West Wickham and Waterloo (England), Strasbourg (France), Leysin and Engelberg (Switzerland) and Madrid (Spain). He expanded the Florida program to include an MBA option in International Tourism and Hospitality Management and undergraduate degree concentrations in Food Service and Resort/Club Management.

The program grew and attracted students from well over 50 countries. As an industry seasoned practitioner Iskat maintained a high degree of interaction with the industry in the Tampa Bay region and established an International Young SKAL Club. Active in professional organizations, he earned several professional certifications from the London based Hotel Catering and Industrial Management Association and from both the American Hotel and Lodging Association as well as the National Restaurant Organization.

The Florida Hotel and Lodging Association awarded Iskat their 2002 Paul Brown Award for Distinguished Service to Hospitality Education. He now teaches 6 courses in Lodging, Tourism and Event Management at UCF. His research interest continues to focus on the establishment of a theory of service delivery.