Joel Jenkins

Joel began his career in the service industry at 16 and found ways to continue his culinary interests throughout his 30-year Army healthcare career. Taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by his military assignments and deployments, he was able to expand his understanding of cultures and food.

This segued perfectly into a second career as the Chief of Protocol and Executive Services for the Defense Health Agency-Hawaii and Tripler Army Medical Center. The position allows Joel to combine his full-time job with his love for cooking, catering events for both foreign and domestic senior government officials. His “hobby business,” Events on the Run, began more than a decade ago, when he shared food with other six-day ultra-marathon-running friends and resulted in his pursuit of a certificate in Gourmet Cooking and Catering and membership in the American Personal and Private Chef Association.

Joel and his wife call Hawaii home and share their home with a menagerie of rescued cats.