On the Road With Paul and Derek

Paul Eckert, Senior Vice President, Operations Derek Haug, Regional Director of Operations

Paul and Derek recently made their Q1 Property visit to Spokane, Washington to visit our team overseeing the Davenport Collection which is comprised of 5 Hotels and 1,800 Rooms! We were fortunate to make it for their quarterly team member celebration where Dania Duke and her Executive Committee gave out the awards for team member of the quarter and manager of the quarter. The culinary team created a great menu called “A Taste of Davenport” which celebrated some of the favorite dishes from each of the restaurants (You must try the Fried Pickles from Post St. Ale House). They also had a raffle for team members to win a variety of prizes and hotel stays and the winners of their Robot Vacuum naming contest (Obi-Wan Cleanobi & CindeRoomba). It was great to see the camaraderie and an example of our DNA pillars – Build Best in Class Talent & Culture. Then it was time to walk the properties front and back of house. Back of house we are looking to ensure that Davidson DNA is promoted to our team members in the break rooms and throughout the back of house, ensuring that the DRG toolkit has been rolled out in all the kitchens, and most importantly that the team has the proper tools to do their job. In the front of house, we have a lot of capital projects taking place in Spokane over the next couple years, so we must make sure that the vision and timeline are in line with the property team, ownership, and Design & Construction. We are also thanking the team members and getting feedback on any opportunities in each area.

The next day we attended the hotel stand up and then break into smaller groups to go over each area (Rooms, F&B, Sales & Marketing, HR, Engineering & Finance) in more detail and sit in on the hotel’s weekly meetings like Labor Meeting and GSS meeting while providing insight and sharing best practices that can be beneficial to the hotel and team. We find that many times one hotel is facing a challenge that another hotel has been though and resolved, so this is a great way for us to share successes.

This was a great few days in Spokane for Paul and Derek and we covered a lot of ground thanks to the team. Now we take what we learned and work together to continue to improve.

Kyle (HR Director) tried to play a prank on Paul Eckert by placing the attached Nicholas Cage cutout in his room on arrival. Paul is a seasoned pranker and was onto him, so he decided to just not say anything to anyone about it until the last night we were there. Then we got the Director of Rooms to send out an email about an upset guest regarding a cardboard Nicholas Cage in his room, making Kyle second guess himself until he came into work the next morning and was greeted by this……..