Fall 2015
Burl Battersby
A hotelier and teacher finds a way to combine two things he loves » More ...
Hotel management
Summer 2013
A Night to Remember: Looking back at four decades of the Bell Hop dance
A look back at the WSU Bell Hop, run by the hospitality students in the past.
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Summer 2013
Video: A Century at Alderbrook Resort
WSU hospitality alumnus Brian McGinnis '77 talks about the history and renovation of the 100-year-old Alderbrook Resort and Spa in western Washington.
» More ...Summer 2013
Something Old Something New—A history of hospitality
When Washington State College introduced its hospitality program in 1932, no one had yet imagined an airport hotel, a drive-through restaurant, a convention center, or the boom of international travel. Eighty years later, as the industry grows in new and unexpected ways, the School of Hospitality sends its graduates out to meet its evolving needs.
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Spring 2012
Doug Forseth ’71—Snow business
Doug Forseth ’71 believes in “management by skiing around.”
He is kidding, kind of, playing on the concept of the popular business book Management by Walking Around. But the senior vice president of operations for the Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort is serious about the skiing.
“It is where our guests are,” he says from his office, which looks straight at the base of Blackcomb Mountain. Those runs, and the lifts, and the mountaintop restaurants are things he needs to see regularly. Whether it’s testing the powder on the Ridge Runner, soaring down Sunset Boulevard, or cruising his favorite run, the seven-kilometer Peak to Creek, … » More …
Winter 2003
Putting on the Ritz: American management methods meet European hotellerie
The child of Swiss peasants, no one would have expected Cesar Ritz to
become the hotelier of kings. But then, who would have expected WSU to
add American business management methods to the fine art of European
hotellerie in the town where Ritz got his start? » More ...
Winter 2002
Overseeing the Davenport Hotel with an appreciation for history
“It’s wonderful to be a part of an environment where all you have to do is make people happy and make them comfortable.”—Lynnelle Hull Caudill
Being part of something as elegant and historical as the Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane adds extra excitement to Lynnelle Hull Caudill’s workplace. She joined the Davenport in October 2001 during the landmark hotel’s $30 million, two-year renovation. In April she became director of operations.
While overseeing the daily workings of the hotel, she enjoys the stories she hears from so many people with strong attachments to the building. For decades the Davenport served as a favorite Northwest site for … » More …
Winter 2005
The Fixer
A new hotel in an old Seattle landmark
At Fourth and Virginia in Seattle, where Belltown meets downtown a few blocks from Pike Place Market, a trendy restaurant and residential district meets up with the city’s retail center. It’s here that hotelier Craig Schafer ’76 has made his mark.
His upscale Hotel Andra is nestled in the 1926 brick corner building once beloved as the low-cost Claremont Hotel. Built as an efficiency apartment building and retaining the same spacious rooms, the boutique hotel is touted by the likes of Fortune and Condé Nast Traveler magazines and the design industry for its appealing modern look and … » More …
Summer 2008
A home for hotel history
One day in the late 1920s, hoteliers Severt W. Thurston and Frank Dupar met by chance in a coffee shop in Yakima, Washington. Unbeknownst to one another, each had gone to Yakima to make separate hotel deals. But by the time they parted company that day, the two had decided to go into business together. In 1930 they joined with the Schmidt Brothers, who had hotels in Olympia, Seattle, and Bellingham, to form Western Hotels Inc., the foundation of what would become the Westin hotel chain.
That first year they had 17 properties, including the Roosevelt and Waldorf hotels in Seattle, the Marcus Whitman in … » More …