Meet Eurodam’s Culinary Operations Manager

Mark Zeller, Culinary Operations Manager

As Eurodam’s culinary operations manager, Mark Zeller is responsible for managing and executing the food preparation, presentation and delivery in all of the ship’s dining venues. Formerly called the food and beverage manager, Holland America Line split the position into two jobs — culinary operations manager and beverage manager — to allow a greater focus on each area.

For Zeller, going to sea was in his blood. The son of a well-known hotel manager who served with Holland America Line for more than 43 years, he was exposed to ship life when he was just 3 years old.

The Dutchman, who was born in Dordrecht, the Netherlands, chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and enrolled in hotel management school in Leeuwarden. After three years of schooling, he served a year-long internship at The Marquette Hotel in Minneapolis, Minn., where he realized that he preferred a job at sea.

Knowing that Holland America Line was the only line for him, Zeller accepted a position as an assistant dinning room manager in 1996. Over the next eight years, he worked his way through various positions within the Hotel Department, eventually becoming culinary operations manager in 2004. Just 28 at the time of his appointment, he was Holland America Line’s youngest culinary operations manager.

Zeller has been involved in the newbuild setup and introductions of all four vista-class ships, and he currently is culinary operations manager on board ms Amsterdam.

When not at sea, Zeller enjoys spending time outdoors and can be found backpacking, scuba diving and sky diving around the world.