Mark Johnson now enjoys a thriving career in the Centre County culinary scene.

Mark Johnson’s experience at State High was filled with a broad range of interests and learning alongside many childhood friends. From baseball to bass guitar, skateboarding to backpacking, and a senior year spent on the State High Enviro-thon Team, Johnson’s wide array of extracurriculars transferred nicely into his later college and career choices. Through all of it, he says he learned the importance of good communication and problem-solving skills, which would help him out later in life.

After his graduation, Johnson went on to Penn State University, where he graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor’s degree in geography. Then, it was off to culinary school in Philadelphia, where he graduated from The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College in 2003. This ultimately led to roles in restaurant kitchens, where he’s been acting as chef ever since.

“My curiosity for the natural sciences, the camaraderie and sportsmanship learned playing with my classmates and the encouragement from teachers and fellow students to stick with my passions, led me to study geography at Penn State, and soon after immerse myself in the culinary world in Philadelphia. Post-graduation, I entered the restaurant job market confident, open-minded and appreciative that I was able to develop in high school with such a diverse group of students from every walk of life and from many cultural backgrounds,” he says.

Now, Johnson is a private chef at MJ Custom Craft Cooking, where he’s doing what he loves – providing local, seasonal cuisine for the businesses of Centre County and the culinary scene of central Pennsylvania as a whole. Moving forward, he says, he’d love to expand that business further into different regions of the state, and to also integrate educational cooking classes into the services that he offers, which all would highlight the importance of the sustainable food movement and local food systems.

For current State High students, Johnson offers up the following advice: “Find your strengths. Follow and nurture those strengths, and align your goals to match what you find fulfilling so that your future profession is filled with passion!”