by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
They were bitten by “the bug” as teenagers.
That’s why Barry Sondern, general manager at the Omni Downtown, and Irene Peterson, director of sales and marketing, say they’ve both had careers in the hotel industry.
They recently took over at the hotel for Paul Eckert and Dave DiSalvo, respectively, who were transferred to the Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort.
Sondern has never worked in any other field and Peterson took just a short hiatus from hospitality.
Sondern took a job at age 16 as a banquet houseman at the Westin in Kansas City. He set up tables and cleaned up after groups left, “and that’s when I decided I wanted to be a hotel general manager,” he said.
After graduating from college with a degree in business, he was offered an apprenticeship at hotel properties in Austria and Germany. He then returned to the University of Kansas, earned a degree in hospitality and entered Westin’s hospitality program.
Upon completion, he worked at properties in San Francisco and Dallas before joining Omni Hotels in 1992. Sondern has worked in Omni’s hotels and resorts across the country, most recently serving as general manager of the Mount Washington Resort in New Hampshire before taking over Downtown’s 354-room, 4-diamond hotel.
“This industry is all about passion. You either have it or you don’t,” said Sondern.
Peterson said when she graduated from high school, she wanted to be a flight attendant, but advice from a fellow student set her on the path toward the hotel business.
“One of ny friends had a job at a resort in the Poconos. She said I had to come up there because it was room and board and a job,” said Peterson.
She said her interview didn’t take place without a hitch.
“The first thing I did was drop a tray, so the manager told me I should either go to the bar or to sales, so I got a job in the sales office. I worked there almost a year,” said Peterson.
Then it was off to New York City and a degree in hospitality from New York Technical College, then to Bournemouth, England, to work in a hotel kitchen.
“I wanted to be a chef, but at the time, women weren’t chefs,” said Peterson.
“So I decided on a career in food and beverage.”
While working at Hilton Hotels in New York City, Peterson married and started a family, which made the 80-90 hour workweeks common in food and beverage departments less than desirable.
When she asked to move into sales, Hilton refused her request, so she earned a real estate license and left the industry for a little more than year.
“I sold Martin Scorcese his condominium in Tribeca,” said Peterson.
Pretty soon, the “bug” returned and Peterson was back in hospitality. Before coming to Jacksonville, she was director of sales and marketing at the Omni Charlotte in North Carolina.
After living in the Omni for several weeks, both Sondern and Peterson are putting down roots. Sondern is buying a home in San Jose and Peterson has a new address in Riverside-Avondale. They said Jacksonville already feels like home.
Sondern said he has noticed two aspects about the city so far: the friendliness of the people and “maybe it’s because I’ve just come from the Northeast, but Jacksonville is really clean and well-kept.”
Peterson said she’s enjoying the contact with a new group of customers. “It’s always fun to come into a new community and learn what makes it work, then help move it forward,” she said.
Sondern said in the short time he’s been here, he’s decided that some people might not realize what Downtown represents and its importance to the community as a whole.
“Last Saturday night, I went to the symphony, then I walked over to BB’s. When I came back over the bridge, there was a band playing at the Landing. Not a lot of downtowns can offer that experience. Downtown has a lot of potential and I don’t think people realize what a gem we have on the river,” he said.
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