Starkey International Institute for Household Management

The Starkey International Institute for Household Management, commonly known as Starkey and nicknamed Butler Boot Camp, is a vocational school for butlers founded in 1990 by Mrs. Mary Louise Starkey and based in a Georgian-style mansion in Denver, Colorado, United States.

Training costs upwards of $13,000, and involves an eight-week course. At the end of the course the students are given a certificate. The certificate is in house management, not estate management. The school graduates over 60 trainees a year. As of 1999, the school had planned a satellite school in the Washington, D.C. area.

Among the school's regulations are a ban on the use of given names and the wearing of a uniform. Starkey emphasizes personal boundaries and professionalism. The school prefers the term "household manager" as a gender-neutral equivalent of "butler". Most students come from a background in a related field such as catering or property management, and are generally older and starting second careers. The school uses the 1989 novel The Remains of the Day by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro as a "model for butlering".

In the late 1990s, demand was particularly strong. According to one expert, the U.S. was experiencing an unprecedented increase in the number of households that could afford a butler. At that time demand far exceeded supply, and the school itself had a long waiting list.

Controversies

In 2001, the school organized a "butler's convention" in Denver, with Paul Burrell as a keynote speaker. After the former butler to Princess Diana began speaking openly in his dispute with the royal family, Starkey criticized him for "betraying his ethics" and said she should not have invited him. She said if a client makes your job impossible, the only ethical choice was to quit.

In June, 2008 Mary Starkey pled guilty to assaulting one of her students at the Institute, Lisa Kirkpatrick, in Denver District Court. The original incident occurred in January, 2007 when Starkey was observed by several students to yell at Kirkpatrick, grab her by the neck and push her face close to a hall way mirror. The reason given for the assault was that Mrs. Starkey did not like how Kirkpatrick would appear in a school picture.

Sometime after the assault a group of 10 students at the Institute confronted Starkey. They expressed their displeasure and other concerns they had including Starkey and faculty members belittling and yelling at students and employees[,] an inconsistent and limited curriculum as well as substandard meals and class trips they were receiving despite the $13,000 tuition they had each paid. The students also feared that some students had been admitted and strung along for purely financial reasons, with no real hope of job placement. They were anxious because they discovered the pin each successful graduate would receive — a pin symbolizing that they were all official Starkey Certified Household Managers and ready to supervise the upkeep and administration of some of the most glamorous homes in the world — had little real-world value.

Sources

• Frank, Robert L. (2007). Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. Crown Publishing Group. pp. 277. ISBN 0307339262. http://books.google.com/?id=slDLwk_lJWQC&printsec=frontcover. 
• Sims, Sandy (2000-07-12). "Good Help is Hard to Find". The Campbell Reporter (Metro Publishing Inc). http://www.svcn.com/archives/campbellreporter/07.12.00/cover-0028.html. Retrieved 2007-06-23. 
• Kolhatkar, Sheelah (2006-08-17). "Thanks a billion". Times Online (Times Newspapers). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article610820.ece. Retrieved 2007-11-11. 

External links

• Starkey website
• Mary Starkey