Our Crew

Erin is a serial entrepreneur with an extensive background in the food and wine industry. She’s a cookbook author, founder of Sticky Fingers Cooking, and, together with her talented husband, co-owns the internationally acclaimed Barolo Grill in Denver. Pretty much every day of the last 30 years, Erin has been thinking deeply, curiously, and creatively about how people experience food.

As a Mom, Erin made sure her three kids grew up appreciating everything from kale to cupcakes. Lucky for us, that’s her goal for everyone else’s kids, too! Erin also writes amazingly terrible and hilarious jokes about food that make everyone groan. 

Kimberly graduated from UCLA with a degree in International Development in 2010. In college, she came to realize how multi-faceted the culinary world really is and became fascinated with all things food. After working in the food industry for over a decade and traveling across Europe, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America, she moved to Denver and was able to combine her passion for healthy cooking and working with kids via Sticky Fingers Cooking!

Kim and her husband are world travelers, spending the better part of two years traveling together through four continents and completing a year-long trip in an adventure van. During non-nomadic times, Kim loves mountain biking, skiing, reading, spending time with family and cooking and baking of course!

Lania filters the world through numbers, equations, and algorithms! After graduating from University of Notre Dame with a double major in business and psychology, she worked for several years at large CPA firms. She found her niche in the franchise industry, building and maintaining financial forecast models, and worked for three years as Manager of Executive Finance for Quiznos Corporation. 

In addition to being the friend who correctly (and enthusiastically!) splits a 10-top restaurant bill, Lania is known for feeding people food that is both healthy and tasty. She feels strongly that young people deserve access to healthy food and regularly volunteers with a food bank that provides teens with nutritious meals.

You’ll likely find Lania running around a lake, hiking on a Colorado trail, or exploring a new city with her husband, three children and their golden retriever.

As our Chief of Staff, Katie has a hand in every SFC pot! A graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, Katie has infused our operations with efficiency, organization, and smarts since 2014, designing systems to make us the best kid-focused hospitality company we can be. You just won’t find a more committed, tenacious, make-it-happen teammate. In the kitchen, Katie enjoys watching her husband cook and claims that their two kids are his biggest critics. She loves spending time with friends and family, especially in Sun Valley.

Joe brings his savvy startup know-how and extensive experience in marketing and business development to Sticky Fingers Cooking. He creates and implements innovative marketing strategies and tools to transform startups into sustainable, growing, and profitable ventures. An insatiably curious person who loves to learn about new things and then tell you all about them, Joe is the life of any party. He has played pivotal roles in widely varied startups in sectors that include: solar, computer-aided design, golf, health & wellness, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

Joe is excited about helping Franchisees utilize our extraordinarily effective in-house marketing tools and support systems to bring the Sticky Fingers Cooking magic to even more communities. A bit of a foodie, Joe makes a mean San Francisco Seafood Cioppino and an extremely tasty Vietnamese Carmel Simmered Chicken.

Dylan’s passion for all things food runs deep! From the time he was five years old, Dylan could be found in the kitchen cooking with his mom. After working for many years as a gymnastics coach, he moved to Colorado for culinary school. It was there, at Johnson and Wales University, that he discovered Sticky Fingers Cooking. Six years later he still can’t get enough of teaching students everywhere how to love to cook!

In addition to being a chef and dog-dad, Dylan is an avid gamer and video game collector. Dylan will happily spend an entire weekend geeking-out with his family over their newest video game, and he and his husband have even won international video game competitions!

Fun, energetic, approachable, here-for-you Julie! She’s in it for the people and the experiences! She’s up for travel, music, anything her kiddos want to do, and she’ll try any food you put in front of her! When you talk with Julie on the phone, you feel like you’ve been friends for years.

And she’s a great friend to have if you’re considering a franchise venture because she loves to play matchmaker to people and opportunities! With 30 years of extensive experience in marketing and sales, coupled with her passion for working with start-up brands, Julie is an excellent resource for anyone curious to explore franchising with Sticky Fingers Cooking or learn how to create the best Mexican feast ever.

Get in touch with her — you’ll be glad you did!

A former preschool teacher and speech pathologist, Amanda has been with Sticky Fingers Cooking since 2012. She began as a chef instructor and now helps keep our database and virtual office in order.

Amanda lives way up high up in the Rocky Mountains (10,000 ft!) in an off-grid home that’s powered exclusively by solar and wind. She feeds her insatiable curiosity AND her family through her hobbies: a greenhouse and an aquaponics tank! And did we mention that she volunteers to milk goats?

When she’s not tending to her three busy kids—and every other living thing around her—you’ll probably find Amanda on a frozen-over pond playing ice hockey with Denver’s own Fly Girls!

Chloe is a transplant from the East Coast who happily calls the beautiful state of Colorado home. She has a background in child development and nutrition and years of experience promoting kids’ health through the implementation of healthy eating and physical activity programming. Chloe has also worked directly with kids of all ages and in a variety of settings, and especially loves working with young children. A self-proclaimed foodie, Chloe excitedly shares her love of cooking (and eating!) with her own three kids.

Maggie Whittum began with Sticky Fingers Cooking as a Chef Instructor in 2010, teaching for several years between extensive jaunts abroad. After surviving a massive brain stem stroke in 2014 at age 33, Maggie rejoined the Sticky Fingers Cooking team in 2016 as Social Media Specialist; she went from feeding the kids to feeding the feeds! Her talents don’t stop there, she's a graduate of Colorado College, Maggie is a seasoned actor who has performed all over the world including more recently with the Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver, a troupe that exclusively casts actors with disabilities. She is also a guide with and Theater of the Mind and creating a documentary about her life titled The Great Now What. In the little time she spends at home, Maggie loves to cook up delicious soups and stews!

A graduate of Information & Computer Science at St. Paul University in the Philippines, Evelyn worked as a SalesForce Administrator for more than eight years before joining Sticky Fingers Cooking in 2021. She is enormously conscientious and believes that whatever your goal is, you can get there if you’re willing to work. A self-described introvert, Evelyn is a mother of five who opts for a good book or a Korean drama over a party situation any day. She is, however, willing to venture out of the house for three things: family, shrimp, and nuts!

Melissa brings her experience in computer hardware and software support, working with various databases, writing and editing organizational newsletters, and cooking at a retreat center and for family to her lead data entry position at Sticky Fingers Cooking.  

Melissa likes a challenge in work, cooking, and baking, which she has been attempting recently. She credits baking with learning more patience! Melissa enjoys living in the Pacific Northwest.

Emily is a versatile writer/editor who believes that while people and ideas change the world, well-crafted words really help! Emily has a soft spot for food that not only tastes good but that does good – for our bodies, communities, and planet. After spending a thoroughly delicious year in Florence, Italy, she earned a degree in Italian and Spanish from Middlebury College (VT) and a Masters in Curriculum & Instruction from UC Denver. Originally from New England, Emily has called Colorado home for more than 25 years and – surprise! – she does not ski!

Kayla has had a passion for cooking since she was young as both of her parents are chefs. Being a huge foodie, Kayla wants to inspire others to learn how to cook and enjoy many different recipes. Kayla attended MSU Denver and was the first to graduate in her family with a college degree. She attained her International Business degree with a concentration in Marketing. Her love for social media and how it can connect us all in so many different ways creatively is what inspired her to make that her professional work. She loves to travel and her favorite place is Costa Rica. Whenever she travels, she loves to try as many new foods as possible and bring that knowledge home into her own kitchen! Kayla also loves to attend live music, being outdoors, attending comedy shows and riding horses.

After spending twelve years managing a busy restaurant in Denver, Caroline took a break to pursue a lifelong dream of attending culinary school. Upon graduating the professional chef program at Cook Street Culinary School, Caroline thought that a job at Sticky Fingers Cooking would allow her to combine her many passions in hospitality, managing amazing people and passing on culinary education. When she isn't in her kitchen working out new plant based recipes, she can be found in her garden chasing around her young dachshund Auggie. Her hobbies include enjoying the beautiful Colorado weather, by hiking, down hill skiing or riding her bike around Denver discovering new restaurants.

Heather joined SFC in 2017 and combined her passions of being creative in the kitchen and serving kids! Most of her career was spent as a recruiter for technology companies and volunteering. One of her favorite volunteer experiences was doing grief work with kiddos; helping kids (and their families) process the loss of their special person. In 2012 she and her husband started Software Freedom School where Heather is the Chief Foodie, feeding the geeks!

In 2014 she found joy in commercial baking, being an Executive Director of a non-profit and volunteering with adults; teaching them to cook healthy meals. In 2022 she became Director of Chef Operations which combines ALL of her skills into her favorite career ‘roll’ ever! When she’s not playing in the kitchen, she can be found on a road trip with her husband and dog, playing board games with her friends and family, serving in her church and simply living her best life!

Lorie is very passionate about cooking and nutrition. She is a North Dakota native and worked in the medical profession. Lorie’s love of food and cooking prompted her to attend Culinary School here in Denver. She loves kids and taught her sons and all of their friends how to cook.

Emily is a mother of 2 teenage boys, a graduate of Information and Computer Science at St. Paul University, Manila, and also working part time as Operations Onboarding Associate for a lifestyle mobile app where you discover the best restaurants and local services in the Philippines. 

She believes that everything happens for a reason and life should be lived one day at a time. A lover of k-dramas, Bangtan Sonyeondan, nature trips, plants, long rides, and should always have something sweet after meals.

After graduating from Creighton University with degrees in Social Justice and Music, Lucy spent a decade teaching 3-6 year-olds in a Montessori classroom. In 2011, she joined Sticky Fingers Cooking as a chef instructor, relishing teaching children about food and recipes from around the world, and leveraging her teaching background to incorporate math, science, language, history, and geography into her classes.

When Lucy and her family relocated from Denver to Chicago in 2013, she assumed her current role as Sticky Fingers Cooking’s Regional Manager, and she’s been increasing access to SFC culinary programs ever since. Lucy attributes her love of food and big family dinners to growing up in a large Irish-Italian family. She happily spends time with her husband, two kids, and English lab, and loves to cook (of course!), ride horses, and plan the next family vacation!

Justin is a culinary adventurer with a heart full of warmth and a zest for flavor exploration. With a passion for trying out new dishes, the kitchen is always buzzing with excitement for his friends and family. He’s all about spreading kindness and good vibes wherever he goes. Outside of his culinary pursuits, you'll find him hitting the road with friends, chasing waterfalls, and discovering hidden springs for the ultimate splash of fun. Mix in some great music, and you’ve got a recipe for his perfect day!

Nicole loves sharing food and cooking with students. She has worked with school aged children for the last 10 years. Most recently, she worked for a nature museum directing camp programming, leading field trip workshops and after school programs, and visiting classrooms for science lessons! Nicole loves to cook at home and enjoys experimenting with new healthy, plant based meals. Nicole also enjoys spending time outdoors! She loves hiking, canoeing, and gardening with her husband and dog.

Alli started cooking as a teen, volunteering during the summer at church camp. Then, after traveling the world as a United States Marine, she decided she wanted to teach children to cook, because that's where the real action is! She took her culinary degree and experience as the Mom of two wild boys to Sticky Fingers Cooking! After starting as a chef instructor, she now works in the “virtual” office to plan all the classes and camps in the greater Austin area. Besides being obsessed with food, Alli has a love of doing anything outside! She once lived in her RV, with her husband and kids for an entire year, driving around the country. Now she enjoys renovating her 122 year old duplex and hiking in Montana. 

Hannah is a CA native but has called Texas home since 2019. She has worked in the food industry since she was a teenager and even had her own business making cake pops! She loves spending time with her husband and two teenage boys, working out, eating delicious food and traveling! When she is home, she is relaxing with her three chihuahuas or hosting friends & family, typically forcing them to play board games. Hannah enjoys all sports, but more than anything else, she loves Green Bay Packers football!

Meet Trang Nguyen, a globe-trotting gourmet with a heart for community and kids! Born and raised in Vietnam, educated in the UK, and now a proud resident of the US, Trang’s transition from the finance world to Sticky Fingers Cooking is as remarkable as her culinary creations. With a deep love for children and a passion for enhancing her community, she’s thrilled to bring the joy of cooking to the youngsters in Northern Virginia through Sticky Fingers Cooking. An adventurous eater and avid traveler, Trang cherishes family time and is excited to inspire the next generation of little chefs!

Fritz is a dedicated family man with passion for food and a wealth of experience in business! He had spent over 8 years in the corporate world before joining Sticky Fingers Cooking where he brings his expertise in business management, client relations, and organizational leadership to the team. Outside work, he treasures cooking for his family, discovering new food spots and spending quality time with his wife and son. Their favorite bonding activity? Hitting the beach together during their free time. His deep family connections and love for food shine through in everything he does, making him an integral part of the Sticky Fingers Cooking community.

My name is Victoria and I am blessed and thrilled to be the new SFC owner in San Diego California. Our community is hungry for cooking and education on health. I've taught in public and private education for the past 16 years and my passions are bringing people together and taking every chance I have to learn something new. I look forward to serving San Diego's youth and families!

I am a first generation Mexican-American that was born and raised in San Diego, California. I am someone who loves to explore as well as both learn and try new things. I have had the pleasure of living in many places in our beautiful country, but none compare to San Diego!  I am a big kid at heart with an infectious laugh! In all seriousness, I have a passion to help children learn and grow up to be healthy and happy grown ups. I truly believe that through Sticky Fingers cooking we are not only able to help children build healthy habits that will help them grow into healthy and happy individuals but in the process also learn math, science, english, practice our social skills and travel the world by tasting recipes from different countries. 

Meet Paul Kim, the culinary adventurer with a knack for blending business acumen and gourmet passion! With a history in banking and an MBA under his belt, Paul now stirs up success as the proud owner of the Sticky Fingers Cooking franchise in Dallas, TX. When he’s not perfecting the ultimate chocolate chip cookie or concocting fruity pebbles cereal milk ice cream, you’ll find him exploring new travel destinations or honing his poker skills. Alongside his two furry companions, Paul effortlessly balances real estate ventures and his love for all things food.

Chris is a native New Englander. Born in Maine and growing up in eastern Massachusetts, he has a deeply-held appreciation for the beauty of natural landscapes. Chris has a passion for capturing unique and special moments through the lens, and loves exploring new perspectives through drone photography. Chris enjoys camping, hiking (especially in the mountains!), cooking for friends and family, long road trips, and all-things technology. He currently resides in Princeton, New Jersey with his wife, Margaret, and daughter, Ellie. He has long been interested in owning his own business. With fond memories of cooking and baking with family as a kid, Chris is incredibly excited to offer those same opportunities to other children through Sticky Fingers Cooking.

Annette Littlefield traded in her corporate hat for a chef’s hat after over a decade in sales and account management, driven by a passion for wellness and nutrition for busy families (like hers!). She stumbled upon Sticky Fingers Cooking and was quickly drawn to their tasty teaching style and positive mindset. As a busy mom and stepmom, Annette is all about whipping up nutritious, delicious meals that inspire her family towards a healthier, happier lifestyle. Her love for health-conscious cooking started during her last pregnancy when she learned that food is more than just fuel—it's the secret sauce to well-being! Originally from just north of Atlanta, she now calls Jacksonville home and loves sharing the joys of cooking with the kids in her community. When she's not in the kitchen, you'll find her digging in her urban garden or cooking up new recipes with her kids—because life’s too short for boring meals!

Catherine considers herself a dreamer and an adventurer. A mom of two, she transitioned from a degree in fashion design to a thriving career in sales, blending creativity with a sharp business sense. Growing up under the West Texas skies of El Paso, she cultivated a love for exploration that carried her from New York City to San Francisco—and on more than one epic journey to many corners of the world. In 2016, Catherine and her family found a lasting home amidst the beauty of Northern Arizona. Passionate about travel, Catherine has made it a cornerstone of her life, fostering connections and shared experiences. One of those connections from Thailand of all places lead her to Sticky Fingers Cooking and she is now thrilled to bring this unique and inspiring concept to her community, eager to share its joy and connection through the art of cooking.

Cassie has spent over a decade working with children and brings a joyful, curious energy to every class she teaches. A proud self-proclaimed foodie, she loves experimenting with new recipes and discovering flavors from around the world. Her favorite part of teaching? Watching the spark of wonder in kids’ eyes as they explore the magic of cooking and try something new.

Cassie has previously worked with Denver Public Schools, where she supported student learning and engagement with care and creativity. She’s passionate about creating fun, inclusive spaces where children feel confident, curious, and excited to learn—one delicious bite at a time!