The hotel and hospitality business was in my blood at an early age, growing up in Texas. My dad was international sales manager for Bell Helicopter and he was a pilot, easily making the switch from being a WW 2 Navy aviator to helicopter pilot. I used to accompany him on many occasions, flying to Dallas Love Field to meet prospective clients and ferrying them to various hotels around the Fort Worth area. In those days, many hotels had fully functional heli-pads because the D/FW area was so spread out and because there were major military contractors in the area.
Frequently I had to wait while he dropped off his customers so I would hang out around the hotel lobby and pool area. Sometimes we flew the 75 mile hop to Mineral Wells; home to Fort Walters which was the primary military training base for helicopter pilots and spa haven since the early 1900′s. The grand Baker Hotel, designed by Texas hotel magnate Theodore Brasher Baker, was built and opened right after the 1929 stock market crash, and boasted extravagant creature comforts such as a hydraulic system that pumped ice water to its 450 rooms, fans that shut off automatically when guests left their rooms and a compartment in each room that let the hotel valet pick up guest’s laundry without entering the room. I remember the grand lobby, thick velvet curtains and lobby chairs I could literally sink into while I passed the time. There was something about sitting in a luxurious hotel lobby that captured my imagination; the elegant surroundings, the well heeled and well dressed guests from far-off and exotic places, (people used to dress up to travel in those days), the decorum of the bellmen and front desk staff, the subtle chime of the elevators, the marble floors, endless corridors and majestic ballrooms, all were to be subtly ensconced in my memory.
Frequently I was a guest of dad’s customers, often prosperous aviation executives from Australia or the orient, and we regularly dined in luxury restaurants or hotel gourmet dining rooms so I learned at an early age the finer points of hospitality service, at least from the receiving end.
Later, in college at the University of Texas, I worked full time in a dormitory kitchen, learning large scale food service operations in the food warehouse, main kitchen, bakery, and meat shop. I have a great recipe for meatloaf-for 1,000 people.
After school, I got my first hotel job, opening the 300 room Ft. Worth Hilton, where I was bar manager, purchasing agent, and catering director. Under the tutelage of veteran hotelier Neal Hospers, I learned how to book bands, plan a New Years party, and produce Sunday brunch with live and well-known jazz artists of the time, also helping in developing a downtown renaissance that continues to this day. The banquet staff was an interesting group of country club waiters and I learned a lot from my banquet manager who a decade earlier had served President Kennedy breakfast on that fateful November morning. We used to borrow and lend waiters, linens and various banquet equipment from the nearby Hotel Texas which could seat 3,500 for a banquet, and we held cattle sales and auctions in the hotel parking garage, so I acquired a skill in planning unusual and unique events.
After four years at Hilton, I had the urge to work in a bigger hotel, so I went to Las Vegas and was offered jobs at the FlamingoHilton and Las Vegas Hilton. As assistant bar manager at the latter, I worked for the largest resort and convention hotel in the world at that time and the flagship of Hilton Hotels Corporation. After a year, I became convention services manager, precisely at midnight on New Years Eve. My first assignment; Clear the Hilton pavilion following the party, remove the carpet and have the hall ready for the CES show, which moved in at 8:00am the next morning. I coordinated and managed all events, meetings, parties and special events on a large scale. In my spare time, I would hang out in the showroom and got to know the workings of stagecraft from A to Z.
I served three years before becoming director of restaurants, then was promoted to director of room service. Hilton room service was a great job. 100 waiters, 3074 rooms, 300 suites, and lots of parties and hospitalities from 25-500 guests. During major conventions, we had as many as 50 full-scale parties going on at the same time. In addition, Barron Hilton had a suite in the hotel and the senior vice-president of Hilton Hotels Corp lived on property.
Every new yea’s eve, Barron Hilton hosted 100 guests for a 3-4 day fling, starting on December 30 with events morning noon and night in the Imperial Suite on the 30th floor. The big party was on new year’s day, when we served up an unbelievable brunch while the guests dined, bet on college games and partied all day. As a result, Mr. Hilton got to know me and so did his brother Eric Hilton. Eric married in the suite and I wound up escorting his bride suite and when we entered the foyer, the 100 or so guests turned around at once. Eric motioned me to bring forward so I walked her down the aisle. Then went to check the champagne. I also played golf with Eric in the Hilton Cup Tournament one year and we won the thing. I picked up a cool 1,000 in cash.
Barron Hilton was a skilled pilot and asked me to help with his events at the Flying M Ranch in Northern Nevada, a 500,000 acre ranch in the Sierras where I headed up some one-of-a-kind events, including a soaring camp for glider pilots from around the world that lasted eleven days. We flew into the Flying M on the Hilton Jet and served 50 guests breakfast, lunch, cocktails and dinner for almost two weeks. On board as special guests along with the finest glider pilots in the world were astronauts Alan Sheppard, Gene Cernan, and many celebrities who fancied aviation and soaring in some of the most challenging conditions on earth. Indeed it was Stephen Fossett who lost his life after taking off from the Flying M in 2007.
In 1990, I got the notion to expand my horizons so I joined USA Hosts, a leading destination management company (DMC)
…to be continued
