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.
