Marriott on the Move

This coming Sunday is Mother's Day - a special day to honor our moms and thank them for all they do. My mother, Alice, was a very special woman. Not only did she raise my brother and me and take great care of my father, she was very active in her local community, in politics and she helped my dad start and run this company.

Back then, it was common for women to stay home, but my mother always seemed to be out working on new projects or events, but she still found plenty of time to be with and care for her family. My wife Donna and my daughter Debbie are just the same - Donna is involved with many local charities, including the Women's Heart Board in Washington, D.C., and organizations around the country. Debbie works full time as Marriott's senior vice president of government affairs and serves on several charity boards, but they both find time for their families.

We have many working mothers within our company, and one of these very special women, Maruiel Perkins-Chavis, was just named one of Working Mother magazine's Working Mothers of the Year. Maruiel is . . .

I've been through eight recessions in my lifetime and, while this one feels deeper and less predictable, I've learned what companies like Marriott need to do to come out strong. Cost cutting is obviously the key to survival today. But the wrong kind of cuts will delay a comeback and erode our competitive position. We need to invest in people, product and service innovation that will reap benefits in the future.

With fewer people checking into our hotels, we've been forced to eliminate some positions. For me, that's the toughest part of the job. I believe sacrifices musts be shared and so I've informed the Marriott Board of Directors that I will decline two thirds of my compensation in 2009. All of our senior executives are seeing significant decreases in their compensation as well.

As we think about strength and vitality going forward, I'm also proud to announce some shifts in our management structure that I believe will put us in the strongest position for the future. Effective May 1 . . .

Today is a very special day for me and for my family. My dad, John Willard Marriott, Sr., is being inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame at the U.S. Department of Labor here in Washington, D.C.

As many of you know, my father, with the great help of my mother, Alice, founded this company, which started off as a nine-seat A&W root beer stand, in 1927. Dad was a hard worker and our employees emulated that same work ethic. He also believed the key to a successful business was to, first and foremost, take care of your employees because he always said, "If you take care of them, they'll take care of your customers and the customers will keep coming back again and again."

My father always made sure to take time to listen to his employees and let them know . . .

Business Week magazine recently named Marriott one of the 100 Best Places to Launch a Career. With lots of exciting companies on the list, like Google, we're excited that Marriott was ranked sixth. We have exciting brands and a huge range of jobs from finance to hotel operations to marketing, hotel development and systems. But, bottom line, we offer opportunities to learn and to grow.

In fact, many of our top executives started working for Marriott right out of college, or even earlier. Bob McCarthy started working for the company as a server at the Phineas Prime Rib restaurant, which was one of our Marriott restaurants while he was still in college near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania back in 1975. Today, he's president of North American lodging operations and oversees the operations of about 2,500 hotels.

Another great success story is Nawfal Bendefa, who started out as a front . . .

I know the daily headlines about the economy are causing some jitters. I'm as concerned as you are about the declining stock market, distress at mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all the turbulence in the airline industry.

The high price of oil, airline capacity cuts and the current economic malaise present real challenges for Marriott and for the hotel industry. However, I've been through seven or eight of these downturns in my career -- most recently in 1990 to 1992 and 2001 to 2003 -- and I have terrific confidence in our business strategy, the strength of our management team and spirited associates to weather this storm and come out ahead.

We just posted our second quarter earnings, which . . .

A group of Wall Street investors came to visit us and their first question to me was, "What is your vision for the future of this company for the next five years?"

There were a lot of ways I could've answered this question. I thought about it for awhile and I said, "I think the future and the vision for this company is to continue to foster, maintain and improve our company culture."

But what does that really mean? Well, our company culture has been stated many ways. Basically, we believe in taking good care of our people and believe that if we do, they'll take good care of the guests and the customers and they'll return.

This has been embedded in the philosophy of our company for over 81 years. It was started by . . .