Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9503310045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But the overt similarities between General Manager Gary Walton and Director of Sales and Marketing Gary Crizer pretty much stop with their first names, except for their dedication to the hotel project.
Walton is tall and genial. Behind his desk, he keeps an automatic shoe buffer with fluffy red and black heads for maintaining a polished, professional look. He stays calm under pressure.
Crizer is shorter and boisterous. He sometimes wears mud-flecked hiking boots with a business suit, a hazard of traipsing through hotel construction. He relieves co-workers' stress with wisecracks.
"Thirty-three years old," he quipped, fudging his true age by 14 years.
"Whenever you have a tough day or moment, you can always count on Gary to get a smile or laugh out of us," Walton said.
And times have been tough lately. Launching the hotel and conference center "is like starting up a business from the ground," Walton said. "There was nothing left over from the old hotel. All the equipment was gone, so you're starting with everything new, which is a tremendous opportunity but it takes some coordination."
Crizer said he has worked without the benefit of records to show past Hotel Roanoke occupancy rates or regular groups of guests. He doesn't even know what the hotel's room rates were before it closed in 1989, he said.
Both men work for Doubletree Hotels Corp., the Phoenix, Ariz.-based company that will manage the hotel and conference center.
Walton, 40, came to Roanoke from being general manager of The Carolina Inn at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Under Walton, Doubletree replaced the university's management and readied the property for renovation, which began in November, freeing him to move to Roanoke.
Doubletree was brought in to run the Carolina Inn in 1993. In its first year, Doubletree posted a profit of $450,000 there, nearly as much as the university had earned from the property in the 60 years it had owned it, according to a published report.
Walton started his hospitality career 22 years ago as a front-desk person earning $4 an hour, a typical start for many hospitality industry executives.
Crizer came to Roanoke from a job as a regional Doubletree director. He oversaw sales and marketing director for 19 California Doubletree properties. His hospitality career also spans 22 years.
Walton and Crizer each said that the other is more important to the operation.
Walton, who heads the operations team, said of Crizer and his sales team: "If they don't succeed, we're not needed."
Said Crizer of the operations side: "If they don't do their job, we'll never get [customers] back. They're the best resale people, if you will, we have on the team."
by CNB