Umstead Hotel & Spa to replace GM, sales manager
Triangle Business Journal - by Amanda Jones Hoyle
CARY – The Goodnight family, owners of the luxury Umstead Hotel & Spa in Cary, have dismissed three members of the hotel’s management staff based on what was considered “underperformance on the owner’s vision.”
Leah Goodnight, daughter of SAS co-founder Jim Goodnight and his wife, Ann Goodnight, has been named acting general manager. She has taken over the role from former Managing Director Bob Schofield, who had been with the hotel’s management team since before construction began in 2006. The hotel and spa opened in January 2007.
“Operationally, the hotel is running fine and profitable,” Leah Goodnight wrote in a statement to Triangle Business Journal. “The upper management change was based solely on the vision and expectation ownership had set forth for internal procedures, and our concern about employee turnover.”
Other management members who were dismissed around Oct. 24 include Richard Brooks, director of sales and marketing, and Bridget Nelson, director of human resources. The hotel also has an ongoing search for a new food and beverage director following Nick Pijerov’s departure in September.
The hotel early this year named Paul Kellum executive chef, replacing the original chef, Phil Evans.
Leah Goodnight says her goal is to better align the hotel’s management style with the management philosophies of SAS, which is known for an employee-friendly attitude.
Jeff Stocks, chief executive of the Manpower franchise in Raleigh, says his company has helped recruit staff for SAS and that the company regularly ranks among the best places to work in the Triangle. “They have a long, successful track record for treating their people with respect and putting their people first,” Stocks says.
The Umstead is also Manpower’s hotel of choice. Manpower reserves an average of 20 rooms a month at the Umstead for its executives and clients visiting the Triangle. “We’ve had nothing but world-class service there,” Stocks says.
The 150-room Umstead property, located on Harrison Avenue at the entrance to the SAS campus, garnered the American Automobile Association’s coveted five-diamond award and Mobil Travel Guide’s four-star award for 2008.
The hotel is enduring a tough economy, as are all players in the leisure travel industry. Although she would not provide figures, Goodnight says The Umstead continues to grow its occupancy.
Lodging and leisure analyst David Katz with Oppenheimer & Co. says in a recent report that while hotel owners such as Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which owns the high-end St. Regis and Westin hotel brands, have been hurt by a decline in travel nationally, the extent of the decline is not as great in non-urban markets.
“Nevertheless, with the turmoil in the financial markets, negative consumer sentiment, and a decline in economies around the world, travel has significantly deteriorated … ” Katz wrote in an Oct. 23 report.
Leah Goodnight’s elevated role in the hotel’s management is likely temporary, she says. She and her husband are expecting their second child in January, and she is actively seeking her replacement as general manager.
She says she worked closely with the leadership team in preparing the hotel to open, assisted in the purchase of artwork throughout the building and managed the hotel’s gift shop, which recently won a Retailers Excellence Award for best visual merchandising for gift shops across the country.
Leah Goodnight is a graduate of Duke University with a degree in economics and is a founder of the Beanie+Cecil boutique clothing stores in Raleigh and Wilmington.
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