Marlisa Brown - president of Total Wellness Inc., a private nutrition
consulting company based in Bay Shore and West Babylon, N.Y.

Marlisa Brown, M.S., R.D., CDE, CDN, has created a career integrating business and nutrition to help others lead healthier lives. A registered dietitian, certified diabetes educator, author and chef, she graduated from the C.W. Post Campus from Long Island University with a B.S. in marketing in 1982, an M.S. in Nutrition and AP4 certification in 1994. She is the president of Total Wellness Inc., a private nutrition consulting company based in Bay Shore and West Babylon, N.Y. that specializes in culinary programs, corporate wellness, diabetes, weight loss, preventive medicine, medical nutrition therapy and sports nutrition.

Brown has made countless television appearances and written numerous magazine articles about healthy eating. She's worked with diet and nutrition leaders like Richard Simmons, Jorge Cruise and Leslie Sansone. She received the emerging dietetic leader award from the American Dietetic Association, and is the past president of the New York State Dietetic Association.

When Brown entered the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, her goal was to obtain a degree in psychology, but with a family business to consider, she switched her focus to business, even though her heart wasn’t really in it.

"I knew I wanted to go to college, but didn't know what I wanted for my future. I was just a young person trying to find myself."

"I didn't want to work any more in the family business, so I tried many different opportunities. I didn't jump from job to job, but I was just working to make money, not necessarily with a career focus."

The biggest asset she had was her ability to undertake almost anything. "If somebody asked me to do something I'd say yes even if I didn't know how. I figured I would be able to learn."

Brown was working at a catering hall as a waitress when she was asked if she could fill in as a cook. She said yes and the next thing she new she was in charge of a wedding for that weekend.

"I always liked working with food,” Brown said, “and I did a good job. I pulled it off with no training or experience, other that reading cookbooks and asking a lot of questions."

So began her culinary development, leading to several years of working as a cook. She opened a catering business, which started out of her home kitchen.

"I had no idea that my marketing degree would actually help me at some point," she said. "But it helped me to develop my business and to manage."

As before, always taking every opportunity paid off. A client asked her if she could cook some diet desserts. Although she had never tried it before, true to form, she said yes and worked to develop diet chocolate cake, carrot cake and others. Word spread and demand grew.

She had always been interested in nutrition but didn’t realize the career opportunities that were available there. Also the idea of working with and helping people had always been important to her. She became obsessed with the idea of learning more and started to study nutrition and culinary skills as much as she could. Eventually she found C.W. Post's nutrition program and despite some trepidation about going back to school as an adult, she decided to enroll. The nutrition programs presented a lot of science, and although she had never taken a science class in her life, she came through.

Anxious to use her new skills, Brown started to work as a registered dietitian at a major food service company the day after she received her Masters. Aside from working with the companies' clients, she introduced corporate wellness programs for all the companies’ clients, which included lectures, health fairs, workshops and culinary programs.

She started a corporation "Total Wellness Inc" with her partner and fellow Post graduate Carol Goldschein where they developed books, recipe cards and products, including the Food Mover with Richard Simmons. Today Brown counsels 60-80 clients a week, she is in the process of writing two books and serves as a consultant to corporations and magazines while she continues to develop nutrition and culinary products.

"It never occurred to me that my marketing degree would play a role in where my career would go," she said. "It's funny that I never thought about it that way. But I have been a businesswoman from day one."

Although her career path didn't start out exactly how she thought, Brown says she wouldn't change a thing.

"The key is to meet challenges and changes as they come, everything you do can be a learning experience, mold your education and skills into something you like, and knowing this you can take your career wherever you want it to go."

Posted: November 1, 2007