Associate Spotlight

Open Enrollment

Ends Friday!

Towne Park’s

World Series

Talent Champions

Unite

Sneak Peak of New

Training

More big news on

internal promotions

And…

IN THIS ISSUE:

Scary incident and quick thinking serves as

a potentially life-saving reminder

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

Bruce Thomas, VP of Guest

services at Geisinger Health

Systems, celebrated two of

Towne Park’s employees after

receiving several letters from

patients about their

exceptional customer

services. The letters stated

how Elizabeth Candelora and

Doug Snyder touched their

lives. Included in these letters

were mentions of their always

upbeat spirit, complete with

chin lifters!

A celebration was held in

the hospital lobby including

all the guest services

managers at Geisinger

Health System. During this

celebration, the letters

were read and these

standouts were awarded

gift cards by the hospital

and a recognition award

from Towne Park. Keep up

the great work Doug and

Elizabeth!

Have an associate that you’d like to see in the spotlight?

Send submissions to OurTowne@townepark.com

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

At approximately 10:30pm, a vehicle pulled on to the front drive of a Towne Park location and

requested that their truck be parked in front of the hotel. The vehicle was backed into a space by the

two guests at which time they offered a $100 tip to keep it on the drive. The doorman agreed to keep

it on the ramp but thought it suspicious because the vehicle was a “beat-up” older model truck and the

guests insisted on keeping the keys to the vehicle. The doorman mentioned the odd behavior to

several off duty police officers that were at the hotel and they did some initial investigations. Local

police ran the temporary tags on the vehicle and determined that the vehicle was purchased earlier

that day at a pawn shop. Upon learning this, they looked through the windows of the vehicle and had

enough suspicion that the matter was escalated. A Bomb Squad and bomb sniffing dogs were

dispatched to investigate the suspicious vehicle. The bomb sniffing dogs “alerted” to the vehicle and

the decision was made to evacuate the hotel around 2:00am. During this time a perimeter had been

established around the hotel and nearby streets were closed to traffic. All hotel guests and staff were

evacuated and relocated to until 5:30am. The local fire department checked every room in the hotel

before determining that the evacuation could be lifted. The suspicious vehicle was towed and the

bomb disposal team destroyed a suspicious item. The owner of the vehicle has been questioned by

police and the investigation remains open according to news organizations. The only additional

information to come out has been that police did indeed find a device which they deemed as a credible

threat.

While this sort of event is extremely rare, it is worth sharing with our teams to ensure that every single

one of us knows what types of behaviors should raise a red flag. We don’t know what might have

happened had the associates out front been less engaged or less vigilant. How many times has a car

been left unattended on a front drive? What may have happened if the team at the front door didn’t

approach the vehicle or didn’t question the motives and were happy with the large tip? Did you know

that large tips have commonly been used by criminals as a means of distracting an associate?

Safety is everyone’s job and as the saying goes “If you see something, say something”! We talk about

how Towne Park provides the “front line” of service. We must remember we are also the “front line” of

defense!

The following video was produced by the Department of Homeland Security and is geared towards

hotel associates. This 9-minute video is a new addition into the GEAR UP and ASCENT programs, but

is worth a watch for everyone… it just may save your life.

Click here to view Suspicious Activity Awareness Video

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

Towne Park’s annual Service World Series has advanced to the third

round! Let’s take a look at the semi-final matchups:

(7) HC South vs. (11) Orlando

(6) HC Northwest vs. (19) HC Northwest

The stakes are high with a $1,000 prize going to the winning

district and $500 to runner-up to use for a district-wide

celebration.

The World Series finals will take place from November 9th thru 16th

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

Eastern Group Regional Trainers, Sarah Rosenbaum and Kevin Libersat successfully held Towne Park’s

1st People Summit in Annapolis on Oct. 21-22nd, where they brought together the Talent Champions

from the Northeast, Tristate, Mid Atlantic and Southeast Markets. The two days were focused on

engaging and enabling each district’s Talent Champion to successfully execute and support Towne Park’s

Talent Ready and training initiatives. Senior Vice President Scott Buttz, Market VP Gareth Warren, and

VP of Training & Talent Acquisition Barbara Stevens were amongst leaders who participated in this

event. Key takeaways included a 2016 game plan focused around associate satisfaction and loyalty.

Reach out to Sarah or Kevin if you’re interested in more details!

Speaking of Training…

You spoke and we’ve listened! Be on the lookout for these exciting

improvements to our available training in the very near future…

- Improved revenue reconciliation test format with instant test results

- Updated OJT checklist for cashiers

- GEAR UP for Healthcare

- Over 20 brand new online training courses including topics like

interview skills and public speaking – available to EVERYONE!

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

We are proud to announce the promotion

of Jeremy Smith to District Manager of

the Philadelphia District, in the Eastern Group’s

Northeast Region effective October 26,

2015. Jeremy will have responsibility for the

oversight of 10 hotel properties in downtown

Philadelphia with $1.7 MM in GOP.

Jeremy started his career 12 years ago in the

Philadelphia District as a GSA at Loews

Philadelphia, before moving on to GSC at Sheraton

Society Hill, and later returning to Loews as an

AAM. He then was promoted again to AM at

various sites in the Philadelphia and Washington DC

Districts, most recently as AM at Washington Hilton

(2012-2014) and Gaylord National (2014-Present).

Throughout his career, Jeremy has shined as a

leader evidenced by his many awards and accomplishments including President’s Club Award Winner,

back to back Mid-Atlantic Region MVP Awards, Team of the Year Award for the Washington DC Market

and Mid-Atlantic Region, and 10 Gold Certifications in 4DX.

Jeremy graduated from Temple University with a Bachelor of Arts in Education. He is a big Philly sports

fan and holds season tickets to the Eagles football team as well as Temple University football and

basketball teams.

Please join us in congratulating Jeremy on his well-deserved promotion and wish him the best of luck as

he makes his way back to Philadelphia to lead a great team of AM professionals.

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

During her tenure with Towne Park, Jody has made an immediate impact on newly-promoted

leaders proving people development is her passion. Jody played a vital role in transitioning and

building bench strength which allowed Nashville to deploy ten salaried leaders throughout the

organization in 2014. During this time, Jody on-boarded eight newly-promoted salaried

managers in less than seven months. Jody refers to the dedication for her team as her “people

promise”.

In 2014, Jody proved another of her natural gifts is client

relations. While transitioning the eight Towne Park site

leaders, she successfully navigated through five General

Manager transitions and one ownership change.

Continuing with her “people promise”, Jody recognized a

big opportunity that the Nashville market was clearly

missing in their efforts to reduce turnover by 75% by the

end of the year.

In 2015, Jody had raised her hand to take on more in the

Midwest Region. With perspective, she believed that we needed to change our service belief

systems from a mystery shop focus to an overall guest experience/ service culture focus. She

chaired a weekly call for all of the Midwest champions to synergize and collect best practices. She

also created weekly focuses to aid where each champion needed to spend his/her time when

recertifying on a shift by shift basis. Jody held her peers accountable by reviewing the service

dashboard along with the Failed Shop SOP with weekly communications.

Based on Jody’s experience, passion for talent development, client relations and focus on our

product, it became clear she was the right person to lead the growing Louisville market which

will add its fifth account in the past 12 months in November with plenty of new builds in the

pipeline.

Congratulations Jody!

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

We are pleased to announce Dan Nicol’s promotion to District Manager of the Eastern Group’s

Washington Metropolitan Market effective October 12, 2015. Dan will have responsibility for a subset of

accounts in the Washington Metropolitan Market of over $4MM in GOP.

Dan’s Towne Park career began over 13 years ago as a

Guest Service Associate in the Baltimore/DC Districts. In

2004, he was promoted to Guest Service Coordinator of the

Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa and

Marina. He continued to escalate his career as Assistant

Account Manager serving the Loews Annapolis and Westin

Annapolis between January-August 2007 before being

promoted to Account Manager in April 2008. As Account

Manager, Dan served the Hilton Garden Inn-Franklin Square

and JW Marriott in Washington, DC and then the Hilton

Anatole in Dallas, TX until being promoted to Area Manager

of the Washington Metropolitan Market in August 2014.

Dan graduated from Salisbury University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Management. Some of

his passions include traveling, sports and reading. He resides in Maryland with his wife, Lauren, and dog,

Oakley.

Congratulations Dan!

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

Congratulations to Cody Schaefer on his promotion to Area Manager of the newly-created Milwaukee

District effective October 12, 2015. Cody will oversee 20 hotels, hospitals and commercial accounts

spread throughout Wisconsin and Illinois.

Cody began his career with Towne Park as a GSA at the

Royal Palm Hotel in Miami, Florida. He relocated a first

time when he accepted the Account Manager position

at the Chicago Marriott O’Hare in 2009. From 2010 to

2012, Cody gained valuable healthcare experience as

the Account Manager at Weiss Memorial Hospital in

Chicago. In addition to valet parking, he also managed

a large self-parking operation which happens to be one

of just a handful of revenue share contracts in our

healthcare business. While at Weiss, Cody was also

successful in adding internal patient transportation

services, a service the hospital still relies heavily on

today. Cody accepted his next challenge in 2013 when

he took on the role of Account Manager with Encore

Hospitality responsible for the W Chicago Lakeshore and

the W Chicago City Center hotels. Cody learned the ins

and outs of the union business and won Encore’s MVP

Award in 2013. In October 2014, Cody moved again, this time to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He started as

the Account Manager at the Aloft Milwaukee and later moved to the Marriott Milwaukee, a flagship

property for White Lodging. Cody has delivered strong results in Milwaukee since his arrival in the

market. He has developed excellent relationships with our hotel clients and was recently named

“Manager of the Quarter” at the Marriott, an award rarely given to contract employees.

Cody is a graduate of the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where he studied Science in Broadcasting. He is

an avid Green Bay Packers fan and enjoys golfing and the outdoors in his free time.

Best of luck Cody!

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

We are very pleased to announce the promotion of Erin Kabbash to District Manager in the Southwest District, overseeing the Los Angeles Healthcare market. Erin will be operationally responsible for a market comprised of 9 healthcare sites and 3 luxury residential sites. Erin began his Towne Park journey 6 years ago when he was recruited during a Colorado Job Audition. Erin worked in multiple hotels in Downtown Denver before he headed west with Towne Park to Los Angeles and worked in Hollywood and then Santa Monica. Erin is a true example of promoting from within, working his way up from GSA to District Manager. Over the years, he has assisted during the integration phase of multiple acquisitions including with Curbside, Quality, and Minuteman Parking. During the past 4 years, Erin has led the charge in Santa Monica as a Multi‐Site Account Manager responsible for three different sites. Throughout his time in this market Erin helped turn a 30 day notice at the Viceroy Hotel into a client promoter. He led two different sites to a 365 days claims free streak. Erin promoted multiple salaried managers out and provided a talent pipeline for the area. Erin developed a mobile app used to help

Account Managers hit the productivity metric that has been rolled out company‐wide. He spear‐headed the implementation of Luxe Valet which brought in additional revenue streams for several properties in Santa Monica. In addition to these highlights, Erin was recognized as Central California District MVP in 2013 and 2014. Erin is a true leader and a great success story! Even though Erin lives in the Los Angeles area, he continues to root for the Denver Broncos and is a big football fan! He says that his biggest passion is people and that is why Towne Park continues to interest him. He is very excited to get into his new role as a District Manager and help lead his team to achieve their personal and professional goals. Please join us in congratulating Erin on his well‐deserved promotion. Let’s wish him all the best as he takes on new challenges and helps Towne Park Nation in his new role!

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

OUR TOWNE - OCT 2015

Special thanks to Jared Geers and the Texas Region for sending these in, let’s see

some more from around the country!

Send your pics to OurTowne@townepark.com