IF YOU HAD A CHANCE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, WOULD YOU?

If the question is, would I start in the hotel business all over again, my answer would be absolutely yes. I have thoroughly enjoyed the business and can’t see myself doing anything else. I have had the opportunity to meet all different types of people that I would not have otherwise met. No two days have ever been exactly alike and it has not been boring. I have been afforded the opportunity to grow and utilize my gifts and talents in a manner which has hopefully been of help to others. Someone once said that the key to success and happiness in life is to find something that you enjoy doing and then to find someone who is willing to pay you to do it. In that, I have been both happy and successful.

IF YOU COULD HAVE WORKED NEXT TO ANY GREAT LEADER WHO WOULD THAT LEADER BE?

The one leader I would have liked to have spent time with is Ronald Reagan. All politics aside, he was one person of influence whose leadership has positively impacted more people of this generation than any other living person. His “take down this wall” speech freed hundreds of thousands of people from the suppression of Communism. Additionally, I recently spoke to an Air Force Major who was commander in charge of the squadron which flew in support of Air Force One. He said Reagan would take time to be with the junior officers and enlisted military personnel and was always asking relevant questions about their well being and the well being of their families. He lived out the truism that “people don’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care”.

WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP, WHAT DID YOU WANT TO DO AS AN ADULT?

While growing up as a young boy my first love was baseball. I dreamt regularly of one day playing for the Boston Red Sox. Although I did get to play two years of semi-professional baseball upon graduating from high school, I soon recognized that my slowness of foot was not going to allow me to be a major leaguer.During high school and also during my first two years of college, I thought I wanted to be a Pharmacist. During that stretch of time, I worked in a drug store in the town I grew up in which was Westwood which is located 25 miles outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Mid-way through my second year of college, the powers-to-be increased the curriculum requirement for Pharmacy school from four years to five. It was then that I determined that I would leave school to fulfill my military obligation by joining the Marine Corps. Upon returning from boot camp at Parris Island, SC. and Camp Lejuene, NC and while awaiting my reserve unit’s orders to be shipped out to Vietnam, I began looking for a job. It was then that I began my hotel career at the Sheraton Boston as a Mail and Information Clerk. The Sheraton Boston was at that time one of the largest hotels in the country at 1012 rooms.