Shareholder Meets With Culinary School Students

Dorit Ulrich, one of the major shareholders of the Los Angeles Culinary Institute, faced a mob of angry students Tuesday and told them she did not know that the school was in bad financial shape when she and a friend invested nearly half a million dollars early this year.

Ulrich, her voice barely above a whisper, said, “I had no idea. I tried to keep the school open.”

But most of the 60 students who attended the session didn’t want explanations for the Encino school’s sudden closure May 19. They wanted to know how to get refunds of their $20,000 tuition and transfer their credits to other schools.

“I can’t believe the school was run the way it was,” said Steve Conway, 47, of Orange County. “Sign us a diploma.”

Conway said his 25-year-old son, Roy, who drove a 140-mile round trip every day from Lake Forest to attend the institute, just wanted to take his final exam and graduate.

The institute is owned by a Nevada corporation and managed by six shareholders: Ron Costa, Marlies Costa, Carla Skornik, Bruce Riddell, Uwe Dethlefsen and Ulrich, said Ulrich’s attorney, Sherman Lister. Lister also represents Dethlefsen, who, with Ulrich, owns about 50% of the institute.

On Tuesday, Ulrich told the students she invested all of her savings in the cooking school, thinking she was making a wise business decision.

“She was foolish,” her lawyer said. “She invested without consulting with a lawyer first. She is as much a victim as you are.”

Lister said the school now has no money and is considering filing for bankruptcy protection.

“I did not run the company into the ground,” said Ulrich, 64, of Simi Valley, the only shareholder to date to meet with the students. “It was in the ground already.”

“We are as frustrated as you are,” Lister told the crowd, trying to calm them. “She did not have to be here. She could have disappeared like the other shareholders, but she is here, taking all your abuse and anger.”

Deborah Godfrey, an analyst with the Bureau for Private Post-Secondary and Vocational Education, which licenses private schools to operate in California, attended Tuesday’s meeting to provide students with answers.

“Folks, we need to be patient,” Godfrey said. “Everybody is working on this.”

But students, some only a few weeks from graduation, yelled in frustration.

“We are just so angry. There is no hope,” said Bo Sharon, 21, of Sherman Oaks. “If you don’t pay your pot washers, there has to be something wrong.”

Godfrey advised the students to apply for a state refund of their tuition and start looking at other culinary schools.

“We are at the same place where we started last week. Still no answers,” Sharon said.