Erica Mikesh grew up all over the Bay Area, attending four high schools and graduated from UC Berkeley in civil engineering.  She began teaching engineering classes at SRJC in 2014.  She followed her passion for bread baking in 2019 and went through the baking and pastry program at the Santa Rosa Junior College.  The connections she made in the baking program allowed her to work professionally at Nightingale Bakery where she learned the craft of baking bread in a wood fired oven.  One of her coworkers at Nightingale introduced her to the idea of being a culinary instructor.  She followed opportunities through connections she made at the SRJC and taught culinary arts at the high school and middle school levels.  It sharpened her teaching skills and she is grateful to come full circle and teach culinary at the SRJC.  Her dream is to give students the gift that her 8th grade math teacher gave her: the gift of believing in all students’ potential.  In her freetime she enjoys spending time with family, baking bread, making pizza, and watching women’s basketball and soccer.