by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
As the eighth general manager since the Adam’s Mark Hotel opened in 2001, Mark Kaiser seems amazingly relaxed in his new position.
Kaiser started last week as the replacement for former general manager Ben Soto, who resigned after 11 months.
So, is Kaiser nervous as the new man in a historically short term position with the local hotel?
“I am never nervous,” he said. “I am always excited.”
Kaiser, a 20-year veteran of the hospitality industry, said he has been with Adam’s Mark as a general manager for more than three years. He got his start with the national hotel chain as a general manager in Mobile, Ala. Kaiser managed the Mobile hotel for more than three years until he was reassigned to Charlotte four months ago. Kaiser thinks he will be successful here because of his previous track record with Adam’s Mark.
“In Mobile, the average length of stay for a general manager before I got there was eight months,” he said. “I was there for over three years. I have no plans on going anywhere. I plan on making the Adam’s Mark the No. 1 hotel in Northeast Florida, if not all of Florida.”
But for now, Kaiser’s main plan is to get ready for the Super Bowl; his hotel will serve as the NFL’s headquarters. Kaiser has been hustling to get caught up with the plans and preparations for the big event.
“I am very much concentrated on working with the Super Bowl Host Committee here as well as the NFL staff,” he said. “I have a couple of people here at the hotel that have been involved in the process and I am really just assisting them with what needs to be done.”
Kaiser is working with executive assistant manager Noel Salinas and Director of Convention Services Dottie Hendricks to prepare for the Super Bowl. Both Salinas and Hendricks have already been working with the Host Committee and the NFL regarding Super Bowl preparations.
“I have been very busy, but fortunately I am living in the hotel so I have 24/7 to catch up on everything,” he said.
Also, Kaiser is also getting a chance to catch up with Salinas, who he worked with in Mobile.
Though Kaiser has worked with numerous large scale events before, he said nothing compares to the Super Bowl
“I have been involved with presidential addresses and I have been involved with Mardi Gras and other types of bowl games,” he said, “but obviously, from a citywide as well as a media and VIP standpoint, this will definitely be the largest and longest event that I have dealt with.”
But will Kaiser (and the hotel) be ready?
“Absolutely,” he said. “Without a doubt.”
Besides getting ready for the Super Bowl, Kaiser has future plans for the hotel, including more involvement with charities and community groups.
“I want for the hotel to become more of a part of the community,” he said. “I am not saying that it hasn’t been, but I want to be more of a community partner. You will see me involved a lot more in local community activities, events, charitable organizations. I work a lot with police and fire and rescue departments and those types of organizations.”
He would also like to get the hotel involved with a local high school for a vocational training program. In Mobile, Kaiser worked with a vocational high school program where students would come to the hotel once a week to learn different aspects of the hospitality industry as part of their high school education.
“The students would spend one day with us in the hotel business every week to learn skills and learn trades so when they graduated from high school they would have the skills within the hospitality industry to step into some fields that would allow them to start right away,” he said.
Besides getting caught up on Super Bowl plans, Kaiser is getting to know staff members and letting them know about his management style and business philosophy. Kaiser said he has a slightly different style of hotel management that he believes comes from working in most aspects of the hotel industry.
“Having come up through the ranks of the hospitality business from an hourly position to management, I just have a little bit of a different perspective of how to operate (a hotel),” he said. “It is not better or worse, it’s just different.
“I really concentrate on the staff because they are the ones that make us successful. It’s not the management. It’s not me. It’s our hourly employees that take care of our guests and consequentially make us successful.”
Kaiser believes the hotel should run like a family organization and that you have to give the staff incentives other than financial for them to stay at a job.
“There is always somebody that will offer them more money,” he said. “You have to create an environment that is fun for them to work in, one that they feel comfortable and appreciated in, one where we work together as a team to let them know that there is always someone there to help them out and to pat them on the back when they do the right thing.”
As for seeing his new home city, Kaiser admits he hasn’t “made it past the curb yet” due to all of his catching-up-to-speed meetings, but said he is excited to be in Jacksonville and is looking forward to exploring the area.
“I think Jacksonville is an absolutely fantastic city,” he said. “It is definitely a city that is on the rise and with the Super Bowl here I think there is going to be some huge positive outflow of the exposure to the media as well as the general public and the world. It is just a fantastic time to be here.”