Mar. 8—Chef Fernando Ruiz discovered his passion for cooking behind bars.

He started working in prison and jail kitchens when he was incarcerated in his late teens and early 20s, and went straight to culinary school upon his release.

But when he graduated in 1999, he couldn’t find a job.

Applications asked, “Have you been convicted of a felony?” and Ruiz, convicted of trafficking guns and drugs, marked “yes.”

“I would never get a call back,” he recalled. He found work only after he began checking “No.”

“If they found out later, they’d seen how I work, so that kind of got brushed under the rug,” said Ruiz, who is now a three-time Food Network champion. He’s beaten Bobby Flay and won the competitive Guy’s Grocery Games and Chopped, according to an online bio.

Twenty-five years later, Ruiz wants to help build confidence in others who have been incarcerated — “If I can do it, they can do it,” he said — through the recently launched Entrepreneurial Institute of Northern New Mexico.

Ruiz co-founded the nonprofit with Ralph Martinez, a community activist in Española, and Jamai Blivin, founder and CEO of the Santa Fe-based workforce development nonprofit Innovate+Educate.

State Rep. Andrea Romero, D-Santa Fe, helped kickstart the initiative with a $75,000 allocation she secured in the 2023 legislative session. The co-founders expect other funding to become available as the nonprofit builds.

The institute will offer reentry programs centered on cooking for formerly incarcerated people or people at risk of incarceration.

Ruiz will guide groups of about 15 people through a free, four-week culinary course, using a curriculum he developed over the last year.

The classes train participants in skills such as making sauces, butchering and cooking meat, he said, and will cater to students’ personal interests. Each graduate will receive a food safety certification, a $1,500 stipend and an array of kitchen tools. The nonprofit will then help them build a résumé, prepare for interviews and begin jobs with restaurants “from Santa Fe all the way up to the Colorado border,” Martinez said.

Over the past two years, the co-founders have met with more than 35 restaurateurs in Northern New Mexico about their idea, owners of mom-and-pop eateries as well as more upscale fine-dining establishments, and “have gotten nothing but positive support,” Martinez said. Over a dozen restaurants in Santa Fe County and Española have agreed to hire candidates who complete the program.

Meanwhile, other nonprofits, magistrate courts and parole offices in Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties will spread the word about the program.

“We’ve sat down with, you name it — everyone,” Martinez said. “We built quite a resource hub.”

The program’s first group of students will begin classes April 1 at the Kitchen Table in Santa Fe, a shared commercial kitchen space. In a few months, the lessons will move to Ruiz’s upcoming restaurant, Escondido, currently under construction in central Santa Fe with plans to open in June.

The founders’ main goal is to expand classes into the Santa Fe County jail and Penitentiary of New Mexico, both south of Santa Fe, to train anyone interested and help them obtain jobs before they even leave jail or prison, Martinez said.

The need is great, Blivin noted.

A 2017 study found more than 1 in 13 Americans had a felony conviction as of 2010. New Mexico has a higher incarceration rate than the U.S. average, at 733 inmates per 100,000 people, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

Not everyone who joins the program will want to stay in the restaurant industry, but it will give participants a jumping off point, a community for peer support and transferable job skills — all of which are critical, Martinez said.

“Both Chef [Ruiz] and I know how easy it is to fall into a situation and how hard it can be to get out of that situation, and we also know the healing that comes with putting your life back together,” he said.

Born and raised in Española, Martinez became addicted to cocaine and heroine in 2001 and eventually was charged with five felonies. He lost everything because of his addiction, including his family and home, he said.

He went through a series of rehabilitation programs, and when he left a 90-day program in 2012 he was “shut down left and right” as he applied for jobs. “I come from a small community; I felt like everybody knew who I was, and I was stereotyped,” he said.

Martinez found work because his case manager convinced a gas station manager to give him a chance.

He has since gotten his felonies expunged and pardoned and has become a relentless advocate for Española’s “most vulnerable,” including by co-founding the Española Pathways homeless shelter and transitional living facility, he said.

“For Chef and I, if it wasn’t for somebody giving us an opportunity, you know, we wouldn’t be here doing the things that we’re doing,” he said. “We know where an additional supportive voice can take a person, so we want to be that for [others].”