Lynn Minges: My career groomed me to support the industry and the people of NC during this time of dire crisis

 Lynn Minges' story is different from that of the average CEO. Lynn is from the very small town of Bladenboro, NC and she dreamed of moving to a big city to a more cosmopolitan lifestyle. Her father was a natural leader and Lynn learned many of the qualities she uses now as a CEO from him. Lynn attended Peace College, which at the time was an all-girls school, where she had a full ride scholarship for the 2-year program. While at Peace College, she was able to participate in many more leadership experiences, one of which was being the Student Body President. She met her husband around this time and transferred to North Carolina State University, where she received her bachelors in Government and Political Science. After graduating, Lynn worked for many years in the tourism industry eventually working her way up to being the president and CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association. In her job, she advocates for, and supports, all of the micro, small and medium entrepreneurs that make-up the industry. 

Lynn: 

          Like most people, I fell into this career by accident. When I graduated from State, I got married to my husband, who was a year ahead of me also at State, and his job took him to Cleveland, Ohio for textile sales. My first job, and I was just trying to get a job, was in sales for Xerox. Xerox at the time, believe it or not, was a “technology company,” it was like the Apple of the 80s I guess. So I started in sales with Xerox and did really well, they had a great program. Then my husband’s company moved him to right outside of Atlanta, Georgia to their headquarters. So I was looking for a job in sales, cause that's what I had done, the only background experience I had was in sales. I got a job with a resort called Callaway Gardens, down in Pine Mountain, Georgia, and that's how I got into tourism. It was really the sales experience that landed me that job, and so I did convention sales for them. The role I played was to try to attract groups, conventions, meetings, golf tournaments, that kind of thing to the resort. That was really how I got into the tourism industry, and I loved it, and I loved everything about it, and while I was there I got to be involved in lots of different facets of the business. Everything from hotel, to meetings and conventions, to group tours, to golf and the recreation part of it. There were also five or six restaurants in the facility so I was exposed to the restaurant side of the industry. Oh, and the resort had a botanical garden with a big butterfly center, so I was exposed to a whole lot of things related to hospitality and tourism. 

          From there, we moved back to North Carolina, and I stayed home with my two children for about six years, which was a hard thing to do because you come out of your career and then you have to go back. Even though I was staying home with my kids, I used that time to be really involved in volunteering; I knew I couldn’t just sit home and bake cookies and put together puzzles all day. So I did a lot of volunteering like delivering meals on wheels to give back to the community and show my kids what they should do. I would do tours of the governor's mansion or volunteer at the legislative building, I knew I had to stay involved so that when I went back to work I could say that I had done something.

          My first job when I went back to work was running the state’s welcome center program. So if you think about it there are eight interstate welcome centers as you cross the border coming in from the surrounding states, and back in that era there were no cell phones and there was no internet. So, if you are driving from New York to Florida, and you needed a hotel to stay the night you didn’t use an app or anything like that. You stopped at a welcome center and whoever was working there would pull out a map and see what was around, and they would call ahead to see if they had a room available, and they would help you book a hotel room. Also, sometimes people would say “Well what is there to do in this area?” and the people working at the welcome centers would try to get them to stay in the state and spend money by telling them about the Zoo or the Battleship or Tryon Palace. That was the program that I ran, and so we were providing travel service to people who were coming into the state. I managed that program, which was in the Department of Commerce, for several years, and I stayed on with the State Office of Tourism, which is now Visit NC, for 20 years, and I just moved up and kept taking different jobs. I made my way to being the assistant director and then deputy secretary of tourism, which came with more responsibility and more public visibility. Then about eight years ago, the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association lost its CEO, and eventually after a national search the search committee said, “They want to talk to you.” Initially I was not too interested in the job but ultimately I decided to apply, I landed this job, and I am really enjoying it. 

          Life just takes you places, and sometimes we focus too much on controlling it. Based on my life journey, I think that it is best to realize that you may just find a good place to land, and then make sure that you do a good job. If you do, people will notice and you are promoted there, or you will be recruited away. I believe that is how life and career unfolds for most of the people that I talk to. 

           Even before I got the job as the CEO of the NCRLA, I was working with the Association to promote the state to visitors. The largest benefactor of the visitors is restaurants and hotels, so my whole career has really been working with this industry. When I took this job, the industry was not very organized or very powerful. Individual hotels and restaurants were doing their own thing, but the industry as a whole wasn’t flexing their political muscle. So I saw the opportunity to harness the power of the industry to say we are a force. Often policymakers underestimate the value of hospitality and tourism in North Carolina and think of the industry as offering only low wage jobs. After we increased the organization of the industry, we have been able demonstrate to policymakers that the hospitality and tourism industry, employs 11% of North Carolina’s workforce, and generates over $25 billion in sales each year. The industry represents nearly 22,000 businesses and provides jobs for over 550 thousand people. The general public doesn't see that, and neither do some politicians, so our mission at NCRLA is to advocate for our industry to give us a louder voice.

An example of increasing our industry’s power was that, five years ago in North Carolina it was illegal to purchase alcohol on Sunday before noon. So, we began to think about moving the time a little earlier to 10am to open the possibility of selling alcohol with brunch. Being able to sell alcohol for those additional two hours brought massive economic gains because of increased sales. In addition, the added taxes generated with alcohol sales help support additional government services. So this action  brought very significant benefits for the industry and for communities.  

          Tourism is so diverse in both its people and destinations. Career opportunities are available to people from all backgrounds and people can enter the industry at any level of the career ladder. No matter where you start, if you want to you can definitely work your way up the ladder. People who barely speak English can open restaurants with food from their countries, or sell art downtown. Tourism gives them jobs with dignity doing something they love. In North Carolina we have mountains, beaches, rivers, lakes, and historical sites, so there is a little bit of something for everyone. North Carolina has multiple international airports and is in the center of the east coast, which contributes to North Carolina being the 6th most visited state in the country. 

           The Covid19 pandemic has led us to make many changes to our organization. We have had to furlough five of our ten staff members to protect revenue because our organization runs on the dues that companies and members pay to NCRLA. Many members have had to close due to Covid19, so they are not able to afford their dues. Yet, our work is more important to the industry than ever before. For example, we have been working daily with Governor Cooper, since March, to get restaurants up and running smoothly. We created the Count on Me NC program to show the public that everyone is properly trained and that the industry is committed to public health. I reached out to Dr. Ben Chapman at NCSU, who works in food safety, to develop training protocols for all employees from managers, to front of house, and back of house staff, and cleaning practices for the business in general. Doing this lets us market to visitors that the businesses in the state are clean and safe, and helps us convince them that we care, and that they can visit us in safety. NC was the first state to implement a statewide effort like this to protect the industry and our visitors. So far, 70 thousand tourism employees in the state have been trained through this initiative. The cleaning protocols put in place will continue to be used, so being contactless will become a new normal. 

          Another example of our effort to advocate for the industry is our attempt to make the mask mandate more appropriate to our members. When members of NCRLA were finally allowed to reopen, they had to wear masks constantly. The Governor’s initial Executive Order stated that businesses were going to be responsible for the enforcement of the mask mandate, but we were able to get a compromise that businesses just had to put signage up and should offer masks, but that they would not have the burden of enforcing the mandate.  

Our industry is in the spotlight on the fight to get this pandemic under control.  This is justified because the virus is spread through travel and the close interaction between people; but I am doing my best to advocate for strategies that minimize the spread of the virus while allowing NC’s tourism industry to survive this crisis so that we can remain an engine for the economic wellbeing of the state.  My journey in the hospitality and tourism industry has always been exciting and personally fulfilling; but it almost feels that it was all a preparation that would groom me to make a positive contribution to the industry and to the people of NC during this time of dire crisis.

 

Written by: 

Ashton English, Casey Fry, Michael Ellison, Shelby Westbrook

Undergraduate students at North Carolina State University