Marriott on the Move

Hi, my name is Valerie McSwain, I am a concierge at the Washington Marriott, and here today, I am guest blogging for Mr. Marriott.

Before I came to Marriott about 11 years ago, I was on welfare; and at that particular time, I knew that that wasn't enough to take care of my family. So, they had a program called the Pathways program, which was a program to help families get off welfare and to become employed. I truly thank God for the Pathways program because it truly led me to a life of freedom, job opportunities, better education like never before and it's truly been a blessing to my family.

When I first started with Marriott, my first job here was at the front desk. But, at that time. . .

Reflecting back on Marriott's 80 years in the hospitality industry, one word summarizes our company's enduring success: opportunity. This weekend in San Francisco, I'm challenging our JW Marriott, Marriott and Renaissance General Managers from around the world to look for opportunities for their associates to grow and build careers within Marriott. When your employees see personal opportunity, the company thrives, and that has helped Marriott get to where it is today. At the recent Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites General Managers Conference in San Antonio, I shared with all the General Managers the following story about an opportunity my father was fortunate enough to receive.

In 1921, my father returned from his mission for the Mormon Church. . .

I was really happy to hear the President talk about immigration reform in his State of the Union, and even happier to see the bipartisanship that seems to be coming together around this issue.

I recently stayed at our Harbor Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I got a departure card from Ana Ruiz. Ana is a senior housekeeper who works on the upper floors of the hotel. She's been with our company for 35 years. She started out making beds, and she's still doing it, but she now supervises others. . .

We really received a lot of comments on the blog about Marriott's decision last year to take all our hotels in North America 100 percent smoke free. That includes Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, Marriott Hotels, Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites, our Fairfield Inns, and even our TownePlace Suites.

One of our very best customers who smokes blogged back to me and said, "I'll never come back to a Marriott." Well, that's a tough pill for us to swallow. But we made this decision because we knew it's what our customers wanted. And it certainly is what our associates deserved.

I'm blogging from the road today. I'm in San Antonio for a Residence Inn and TownePlace Suites General Managers' meeting. We had almost 850 people in our auditorium this morning and boy, are they enthusiastic about the future of the business and the way their properties are doing.

I've always loved San Antonio. It's a city that's so rich in history and culture. It has a very heavy Hispanic influence and we have a lot of diversity in this city and in our company. And I want to see that diversity continue to be reflected....

There's nothing I love more than a great Marriott cheeseburger and French fries. Boy, I just love French fries. I started cooking French fries back in 1950 when I worked in the Hot Shoppes in Salt Lake City. And all my boys joined the company when they were 15 and 16 and worked first cooking French fries in the Hot Shoppes. So I love French fries.

We serve over 6 million pounds of French fries every year and people love them. Unfortunately, we've all learned that the oil we use to cook French fries with is a source of trans-fat, and today that's not good. We know it's been linked to obesity and heart disease.