Merry Christmas 2013

...or as my colleagues in Operational Excellence would say, Happy Festivus! (We just had our department party Friday but avoided the Airing of Grievances.)

I think I'm ready for a slow, steady 2014. This year started at 500 mph and, while it's settled down nicely, the past few years have shown that you never quite know what's around the next corner. At least I've got all the boxes unpacked from this latest adventure!

One year ago, last Christmas, I wrote about how great it was to be back in Colorado. And believe me, it was. What you didn't know at the time was that I had just gotten back from Las Vegas, where Bob Mruz had told me about an opportunity with The Venetian/Palazzo that seemed far, far too good to pass up.

With another year under the belt, how has the decision to come to Las Vegas panned out? In a word...fantabulously!

Most certainly I miss my friends in Denver, but these days air travel is practically as cheap as buses were in the 60s, and I'm never more than 2 hours away from reconnecting in person with Bill, Gary and the gang.

More importantly, my position as Director of Operational Excellence at the world's busiest hotel has been nothing short of phenomenal. Working again for Bob was like slipping into a favorite jacket - comfortable and welcoming. My new colleagues at The Venetian and The Palazzo have been universally friendly, helpful and eager to work on the grand leadership, performance excellence, service culture and training initiatives we have in progress. And of course it's hospitality - in my opinion, the absolute best industry to be invovled in.

One year ago, I honestly thought that I might work at Great-West for a few years before returning to hospitality. When the chance came to accelerate that, I really couldn't say no. And in retrospect, from a work point of view, it's been exactly the right choice. Not six months after I left Great-West, the person I was working for left. I strongly believe I would be in a chaotic and uncertain work situation had I stayed.

So, all in all, it's been a string of right decisions for 2013. I have a great townhome in Summerlin, very close to Red Rock, and very reminiscent of my homes in Denver - especially after I converted the first floor flooring to wood! I've taken advantage of my close proximity to LA to see Jim, Bill and Bob just last week, and have met many new friends along the way.

Tomorrow we begin an ambitious Leadership Summit at our hotel, involving 120 of our top leaders to introduce a Leadership Promise and some very strong training initiatives and online support to actualize our principles. The Promise was directly created by John Caparella, our president, and his executive team. I haven't felt this connected and integrated into the top levels of an organization since RockResorts. It truly is a wonderful time.

My wish for you is that you have found your connections, good times and great experiences this year as well! My journey over the past few years has proven that old proverb that my great friend and former boss Linda McGill is fond of saying... "In the end, everything will be fine. If it's not fine...it's not the end." Truer words can't be found to describe my life.

Happy Holidays to all!

Home in the West

Back in Denver? Check. Good job? Check. Circle of friends? Check.

So let's move to Las Vegas!

The last year and a half has been great for me – after the layoff at Sears, I made it a mission to return to Denver and the Rockies. I landed in financial services and have spent the last year acclimating to that culture and enjoying that incredible mountain view every morning.

And that’s what I intended to do for the foreseeable future. When, one day in December, an email took me on a whirlwind that is landing me a little further west than Denver.

I’ve had the great fortune in my career to have worked for some of the most supportive, intelligent, caring bosses on the planet. I've had at least seven supervisors who have had remarkable influence on my work life, and I am proud and humbled to have been able to work for them during my career.

Actually, eight: Bob was my boss at Noble Investment Group in Atlanta. He brought me on right at the beginning of the Great Recession, when I first had to leave Denver to continue my career, and we enjoyed a wonderful two years building performance excellence programs for the 50-hotel management company. When I left Atlanta on my journey back to Denver via Austin, Bob was sad, understanding and supportive – the kind of boss who is also a friend and mentor.

The Great Recession has affected many others besides me - and last year it touched Bob when Noble decided to sell its hotel management division to another company focused on the more tactical side of hotel management. It appeared that Bob’s more strategic focus on performance excellence (Bob’s a former Malcolm Baldrige award examiner) wasn’t going to fit.

Bob was able to land at the Venetian and Palazzo hotels in Las Vegas, where there is a culture and focus on performance excellence that fits in perfectly with Bob’s philosophies. Bob joined Venetian/Palazzo in the spring of 2012 and spent several months understanding the needs and culture of an 8,000-employee organization under one, massive, huge, complex roof. And then he contacted me. “I’m building a team – wanna check it out?”

I've written in more detail to many of my friends about how this all worked out - and amazingly fast - but suffice it to say that I simply couldn't turn down the opportunity to work again with a boss who thought of me first when looking to build a new team. Not to mention, the opportunity places me back in hospitality. While Denver is my physical home, hospitality is my work life home.

The positive side of this latest life change is overflowing. The job keeps me in the West, an airplane hop to Denver. It puts me four hours by car to Los Angeles, where my brother Jim, and my great friends Bill and Bob live. It opens up a huge new set of exploration sites that I’ve never been to – Death Valley, Yosemite, Sequoia – and puts other incredible areas like Zion and the Grand Canyon accessible as weekend trips. Las Vegas is surrounded by mountains, and the views are as breathtaking as Denver’s. And, being old and cranky these days (grin), there is a great appeal to living where it’s hot a couple of months and wonderful the rest of the time, instead of living where it’s cold/snowy a couple of months and wonderful the rest of the time.

Add to that a significant increase in comp and benefits, and a return to a Director level position, and honestly, it became a no-brainer.

So…off to Las Vegas! The whirlwind continues, as I’ve put my house on the market and gotten an offer 6 days after; the sale will close in March. I start at the Venetian/Palazzo as Director of Operational Excellence Monday, February 4. Back in hospitality. Back with a former boss who is one of the absolute best. Still home in the West.