Features

The Ups and Downs

The silver yo-yo on Kevin Hanley's desk has been there for more than 15 years. A gift from his wife, it's a reminder that there are ups and downs, and you have to maintain perspective on the unpredictable—not just in the hospitality industry but in life.

For Bob Webster '80, a very bad horrible no-good day turned out to be the very best.

Hanley, who graduated in 1978, adopted that philosophy at an early age. When he was only 25, he was scouring the country, looking for hotels to buy for Victor Management. Next he spent seven years running the real estate department for Motel 6, taking the company from a chain of 300 to 3,000 hotels.

Now Hanley serves as chief operating officer and executive vice president for Sunburst Hospitality Corp., a business that owns 30 hotels from California to Florida to Maine, as well as a golf course in Arkansas. The hotels' brands include Comfort Inn and Suites, Holiday Inn Express, Quality Inn and Best Western.

In keeping with the lesson of the yo-yo, Hanley has to keep an eye on the future and be open to change. When he became concerned about the long-term prospects for one of the company's larger properties, a hotel in Arlington, Va., he knew he had to investigate alternatives. Based on his analysis, the company is demolishing a portion of the hotel and building a 252-unit high-rise condominium project.

In another side of the business, however, predictability is good. Within the hotels, most of his focus is on the "front of the house," where staff members connect with the customers. "I feel I add more value assessing our performance from the perspective of a customer," he says. "While I could not quickly check a guest into a hotel these days, I can very quickly tell if a customer is feeling good about their experience checking into our hotels."

To make that happen, he spends his days ensuring a hotel has the right people in the right places and that those people have the training, tools and resources they need to do their jobs. Since the goal here is consistency, he says, the standards need to be clearly communicated and measured.

Searching for Snow Cones

Roughly three-quarters of students in the hospitality program are interested in the lodging sector of the industry, says Raymond Goodman. But food-service management comes in second, including careers in restaurants and chains as well as cafeterias in colleges, corporations and medical facilities. (Other possibilities include work with retirement communities and clubs or companies that develop software for the industry.) Students must complete an 800-hour practicum to get on-the-job experience, and most go into management-training programs after graduation. Foodies like Richard Coraine '82, however, often go through culinary school instead.

Today Coraine is director of operations for the Union Square Hospitality Group, a company that owns and operates a group of highly successful restaurants in Manhattan, including the Union Square CafŽ, Tabla, Blue Smoke and the Shake Shack, among others. The company's flagship, the Union Square CafŽ, was ranked first among New York City restaurants in the Zagat Survey for six years in a row.

With the opening of each restaurant—and after, as the menus continue to evolve—Coraine has the pleasant task of seeking out the "best of the best" in terms of recipes and products, by traveling around the country and wandering into restaurants and cafŽs. Sometimes he knows about the place before he goes, getting a tip from a friend or reading about it in a food magazine. Other times, he leaves it to chance, stopping at places that catch his eye.

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