Teneo Hospitality Group Names Jennifer Milliron Director of Sales for the Southwest Region

Eden Prairie (Minneapolis), MN, February 6, 2018 … Continuing its dynamic growth, Teneo Hospitality Group, the premier global firm representing 300+ independent and luxury branded hotels, resorts and DMCs, adds another seasoned sales professional to its roster with the appointment of Jennifer Milliron as Director of Sales for the Southwest Region. Ms. Milliron will be responsible for markets in Colorado, Utah, Texas and Arizona.

“We’re delighted to welcome Jennifer to Teneo’s expanding sales team for these key Southwestern states,” says Teneo President Mike Schugt. “Her exceptional hotel sales experience on a national and global level and for major brands will be a great advantage to our members in this region and beyond.”

Jennifer Milliron was previously Global Account Director for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., based out of Denver, a position she held for 13 years. In this role, Jennifer managed a portfolio of over 100 key international association, corporate and group accounts in Colorado, Utah and Illinois. She was also responsible for strategically driving business to 11 global Starwood brands.

Ms. Milliron began her 25-year career working in sales and conference management positions for Hyatt Hotels Corporation, including opening the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place in Chicago. She then worked for Starwood Hotels & Resorts as Senior Sales Manager for the Westin Michigan Avenue, responsible for the national corporate and association group markets in the Midwest and Northeast. She also served as Director of Group Sales at the Westin Chicago River North and the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, where she led the Small Meetings Team for both properties and was responsible for the Northeast Pharmaceutical and Corporate markets.

Jennifer Milliron’s leadership has been recognized with numerous industry awards, including Starwood’s Global Sales Achievement Award and the Shining Star Award for both global and regional sales.

She is active in such professional organizations as the Rocky Mountain Chapters of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) and Meeting Professionals International (MPI), as well as Meetings Industry Council of Colorado (MIC). Committed to community action, she volunteers at Denver Children’s Hospital and the Denver Food Bank of the Rockies.

Ms. Milliron holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Marketing/Management from Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois.

Contact Information:
Jennifer Milliron
Director of Sales
Southwest Region (CO, UT, TX, AZ)
Office Phone # (720) 773-8850
Jennifer.milliron@teneohg.com

Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Teneo Members’ Green Efforts Span Coast to Countryside, Initiatives Preserve Beaches, Woodlands, Wildlife

Three Critical Areas of Sustainable Conservation

Eden Prairie, MN… It started with organic soaps, recycling bottles, water conservation and signs urging guests to turn out the lights before leaving the room. Today, environmentally conscious hoteliers support holistic conservation strategies that reach into every corner of the property. Driven by technology and the demands of environmentally conscious guests, these initiatives have sharply reduced waste, conserved resources, saved money and educated guests to the importance of environmental efforts. The hotel industry has made remarkable progress, but beyond the bricks and mortar of member hotels and resorts lie acres of countryside and coastline that present sustainability challenges and opportunities.

“For many hotels, responsibility for the lands and waterways surrounding the property has become a commitment and an increasingly complex challenge,” says Mike Schugt, president of Teneo Hospitality Group, the premier global firm representing 300+ independent and luxury branded hotels, resorts and DMCs. These responsibilities include woodlands, campgrounds, beachfronts, everglades, mangrove forests, lakes and rivers, as well as marine and wildlife, which has become a priority as rising tides, drought and development encroach upon habitat.

Teneo’s member hotels have spearheaded numerous sustainability projects at every level of operations, according to Mike Schugt. “We are seeing many creative approaches to managing land and water resources, and a trend towards educating guests regarding wildlife and land preservation. Teneo is excited about the sustainability efforts of their member hotels. The meeting planners and groups we partner with are equally enthusiastic!”

Critical Area #1:  Land–Preserve It, They’re Not Making Any More

While many of today’s hotels offer impressive programs to save water and conserve energy inside the building, some resorts must find equally effective ways to deal with the great outdoors. The Resort at Paws Up in Montana comprises 37,000 acres of hills, woodlands and rivers, ideal for outdoor activities and an array of team building and special adventure programs. The resort offers luxury safari-style campgrounds on land that must be responsibly managed. Several rivers run through the property including the Blackfoot, an angler’s paradise. Thanks to The Resort at Paws Up uniting efforts with local ranchers, hoteliers, conservationists and state and federal wildlife agencies, the waterways are as clear and brimming with trout as they were when Lewis and Clark passed through.

The staff of Vail’s Sonnenalp Hotel regularly volunteers to clean the nearby Eagle River, local highways and mountain bike trails. The resort helps employees to reduce their carbon footprint by providing bus passes, car pool coordination and housing within walking distance of the hotel. Sonnenalp also works to educate guests, employees and the public by supporting a range of community efforts, including Zero Hero information stations at community venues such as the Vail Farmers Market.

Since 1806, the healing mineral springs at the historic Omni Bedford Springs Resort have drawn a celebrated clientele. Thirteen US presidents from Thomas Jefferson to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush have visited this bucolic retreat in Southern Pennsylvania’s Allegheny mountains. For 200 years, the hotel has carefully conserved these exceptional natural spring waters. The springs feed the indoor pool at the resort’s Aquatic Center and the natural spring waters are used in treatments at the Springs Eternal Spa.

Allegretto Vineyard Resort in Central California’s wine country is a Tuscan-style villa surrounded by beautiful vineyards that produce fine Allegretto wines served in the resort’s restaurants. Using Old World methods, grapes are harvested by hand versus machine and are grown in small lot vineyards to preserve land. The main villa was designed with the most sophisticated environmental systems available, including those that ensure highest quality of runoff water, preserve natural vegetation, and promote ground water recharge.

The Grand Geneva Resort & Spa in Southeastern Wisconsin spans 1,300 acres of ski slopes, lakefront and woodlands. Recently the resort, certified by Travel Green Wisconsin, extended its award-winning environmental efforts to one of its two championship golf courses, restoring tens of thousands of square feet of land surrounding the course by planting native grasses and plants. The Grand Geneva Resort is also home to the Roy Divik-designed Entry Garden, a sustainable meadow of more than 20 vivid flowers and grasses, predominantly native to the Midwest.

Most urban hotels have little acreage to worry about, but New York’s 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge supports the adjacent Brooklyn Bridge Park with funds and an innovative rainwater reclamation system that irrigates the park during the summer months. The system also reduces storm water runoff into neighboring water streams by more than 50 percent. Roughly 5,000 cubic feet of water is projected to be reclaimed each year.

Critical Area #2:  Against the Tide

Beach erosion and water pollution are major concerns for oceanfront and lakeside resorts. The situation has grown more urgent following the three devastating hurricanes that pummeled the US and the Caribbean in the Fall of 2017.

Volunteers from The Ranch at Laguna Beach currently maintain a 0.75-mile stretch of the Aliso Creek Channel in Mission Viejo. Since December 2015, the resort’s team has removed over 2,500 pounds of trash and debris from the channel, preventing this damaging refuse from polluting the Pacific Ocean. Using an invention called the GL Sand Machine, the resort recycles glass bottles by pulverizing them into sand that is then used in the golf course sand traps and to help replenish sand on Laguna Beach. The Ranch at Laguna Beach is the first property in the Continental United States to utilize the GL Sand machine and it has found a new use for it. Oyster shells from the hotel’s restaurant are ground up and used on the property’s bocce ball courts.

In South Florida, mangrove forests play a key role in marine ecology, serving as habitat for a variety of marine species and birds and as the first line of defense in the face of hurricanes. Guests of the Naples Grande Beach Resort can explore the adjoining 200-acre mangrove preserve and estuary via canoe and kayak. The hotel’s eco-friendly boardwalk, composed of recycled milk jugs, provides an eco-friendly path to the resort’s three miles of beachfront habitat, under the stewardship of its employees and managers.

Critical Area #3:  Walk on the Wild Side

Wildlife preservation and education merge at select Teneo member hotels. They offer interactive programs that bring guests in closer contact with nature and wildlife, often as part of a team building effort. Guests of the Garden of the Gods Collection in Colorado Springs can experience the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center, learning about the history, biology and conservation of wolves, coyotes, foxes, and the environmental challenges they face. The program, supervised by a trained wolf handler, can end with a group howl, symbolizing oneness with nature and its preservation.

The Garden of the Gods also offers groups a day of discovery at the 200-acre Elk Glade Ranch. Through the science of equine therapy, participants ride horses and drive cattle, gaining courage and confidence.

Part of Montana’s Resort at Paws Up is a working ranch, offering an equestrian program where guests, led by an experienced cowboy, help with an actual cattle drive.  These equestrian programs, situated in nature versus a more mechanized or artificial environment, are growing in popularity as team building efforts and exercises in enhanced communication. For non-expert riders, the exercises are held mostly on the ground, and involve approaching, grooming and walking the horses. Thanks to the high sensitivity of horses, participants can quickly learn how their body language, tone of voice and mannerisms impact interactions and team success.

Virtually all species of sea turtles are threatened and Teneo’s member hotels in Florida and the Arabian Gulf are working to preserve these amphibians that are essential to maintaining marine life. Sea turtles are among the few species that eat sea grass and algae that if not consumed, would grow and threaten the entire ecosystem. And, their nests provide nutrients that help to grow the grass that preserves the dunes.

In Vero Beach, Florida, Costa d’Este Beach Resort & Spa participates in the community’s annual Turtle Dig. During nesting season, hundreds of turtle eggs are laid and are protected by signs and markers until they hatch. Then, the contents of the nests are dug up and evaluated, helping scientists understand how well the beaches are incubating sea turtle nests. In July, the public is invited to watch nests on the hotel’s beach be examined. They receive a presentation about sea turtle biology, threats to their survival, and ways to help protect turtles.

In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Jumeirah Hotels & Resorts plays a key role in a comprehensive and sophisticated conservation effort, The Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project. The project is based at the company’s two Dubai hotels, Burj Al Arab Jumeirah and Madinat Jumeirah and is run in collaboration with Dubai’s Wildlife Protection Office.

The public is encouraged to bring sick and injured turtles to the Wildlife Protection Office or to the Aquarium team at Burj Al Arab. Once the condition of the turtles is determined, they are then transferred to the state-of-the-art Turtle Rehabilitation Sanctuary at Jumeirah Al Naseem. When the turtles are deemed ready to return, they are released from the Sanctuary into the waters of the Arabian Gulf as part of the Big Jumeirah Turtle Race. Some of the turtles are fitted with satellite tracking devices. So far, the clear winner is a green sea turtle named Dibba who traveled 8,283 kilometers to a spot off the coast of the Southeast Asian Peninsula. Since 2004, over 1,350 rescued sea turtles have been returned to Dubai’s waters.

 

Inspiring the American Experience, Historic Hotels within Teneo’s Growing Portfolio Shape 21st Century Meetings & Events

Eden Prairie, MN, July 2017 … A Beaux Arts mansion where John Jacob Astor and F. Scott Fitzgerald once wined and dined. The Residence of Presidents including Lincoln, Grant, and JFK. A Pacific palace where royalty rested and film stars frolicked on the beach. Lavish symbols of Old Florida when the Twenties roared and the Jazz Age played. A splendid salute to the Old South with a famous flock of ducks parading daily in the lobby.

America’s past is present in these historic hotels that span the United States from Boston’s Back Bay to San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Once dazzling symbols of the country’s cultural, political and social history, some of these iconic hotels fell upon tough times as fortunes were made and lost and neighborhoods fell from social grace. Today, thanks to responsible and painstaking restoration programs and billions of dollars in investments, these pink palaces, proud towers, colonial manors and ornate mansions are no longer fading relics of bygone days. Splendidly restored to their glory, they are highly relevant in a new era of hospitality. As independent and small brand properties, they offer maximum opportunities to professional planners and their conferees for unique, memorable, one-of-a-kind meeting and event experiences.

“In this new era, authenticity, originality and a unique guest experience are essential to the success of a meeting or event,” says Mike Schugt, president of Teneo Hospitality Group, the premier global firm representing 300+ independent and luxury branded hotels, resorts and DMCs. “A historic hotel, renovated and equipped with the latest technology, delivers on all counts. Today’s planners and guests demand a singular venue, a commitment to authenticity and the most current technology. A historic hotel can provide all those elements to create a productive, memorable meeting. Often independently owned and operated, historic hotels are less bound by strict corporate policies and enjoy greater flexibility and creative freedom,” Schugt notes.

Teneo Hospitality Group’s members include more than a dozen historic hotels in the United States, several of them are designated as national landmarks. These properties have undergone extensive and expensive renovations that expanded public spaces and added new facilities while staying within the strict parameters set by local and national conservation bodies. All have installed new, state-of-the-art technology to meet both the needs of conference planners and guests and to operate on a highly sustainable level in every aspect of hotel services.

Teneo members also include Destination Management Companies in the same areas, which can enhance the historic hotel experience with original, exciting programs that showcase the best of each area’s storied past and dynamic present. Set sail on an America’s Cup yacht over Newport Harbor, tour California wine country, and dance in a Victorian ballroom overlooking the Pacific where King Edward VIII once waltzed.

Many of Teneo’s historic hotels played a key role in political life as well as the social scene. The Willard InterContinental Washington, DC, was a political hot spot from its earliest days as a restaurant and collection of boarding houses. The hotel first opened in 1847 on Pennsylvania Avenue, just steps from the White House and over the years hosted every president from Franklin Pierce to JFK, earning its name “The Residence of Presidents.” By 1860, The Willard was the center of debate over secession and Unionists and Secessionists were so divided they entered the building via separate doors. In 1901, a new and ultra-luxurious Willard was built, and it was brilliantly restored in the 1980s. It now stands as one of America’s most prestigious hotels. Another fabled Washington, DC hotel, The Hay Adams, emerged in Italian Renaissance splendor in the 1920s, on the site of two town houses once owned by prominent Washingtonians John Hay and Henry Adams. In a nod to the hotel’s Jazz Age roots the Hay Adams maintains an exclusive “speakeasy”, Off the Record, a favorite of DC insiders.

As great fortunes were made in the 1920s, newly minted tycoons built fabulous hotels. Florida was a favorite destination of the rich and many flocked to the “Pink Palace”, the Don CeSar in St. Petersburg. Also true to the era, The Biltmore Miami Coral Gables maintained a speakeasy and card game on the 13th floor.

Prohibition yielded some of America’s most iconic cocktails and historic hotels were up to the challenge of masking the harsh taste of illegal alcohol available during Prohibition. French 75s, Sidecars, Southside’s and Old Fashioned all flowed freely. Today, they are back on the bar menu and a favorite of Millennial guests and nostalgic drinkers, alike.

Farm-to-table dining can be traced to Boston’s lauded Omni Parker House, which in the 1850s boasted its own farm to supply guests and diners with the freshest ingredients, including butter for their famous Parker House Rolls. A literary hub for New England’s most famous writers, The Omni Parker House also hosted Charles Dickens where he recited and performed, A Christmas Carol, reading it to a rapt audience of Boston literary lions. The hotel’s kitchen once employed two famous political leaders: Ho Chi Minh was a baker there and Malcolm X, a busboy. Celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse worked as a sous chef before setting out for New Orleans.

Hoteliers in San Francisco, inspired by the city’s steep hills and stunning views, forged the concept of the Rooftop Bar and none is more famous than The Top of the Mark at the InterContinental Mark Hopkins. The hotel was built by a railroad magnate in 1926, and the bar and restaurant added in 1939.

Opulent, Beaux-Arts architecture appealed to the tycoons of the era who were investing in new hotels. Examples of this lavish style are found in New York’s recently relaunched The Knickerbocker Hotel, once a palatial property owned by JP Morgan and now born again as an elegant Times Square hotel. The Willard InterContinental Washington D.C., Boston Park Plaza and Sir Francis Drake and Stanford Court in San Francisco have preserved the elaborate ornamentation, bannisters, balconies, columns, cornices, pilasters and triangular pediments that mark this extravagant architectural style.

Equally rich appointments can be found in the Italian Renaissance style of The Peabody Memphis. First opened in 1869 and reconstructed in 1925, the impeccably restored hotel is a hub of the city’s business and social life. Each day, the legendary Peabody Ducks march through the lobby and swim in its fountain to the delight of guests.

In Nashville, The Hermitage Hotel took the Beaux Arts and Italian Renaissance styles to new and extravagant levels. Opened in 1910, the hotel featured marble floors, walls and columns as well as ornate ornamental plasterwork. The original chandeliers still hang from the lobby’s spectacular painted glass ceiling. Guestrooms were paneled in mahogany and equipped with such “new features” as running ice water and a telephone. U.S. presidents from William Howard Taft to President Bush visited the hotel, as did Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth and Country Music legends from Hank Williams and Patsy Cline to Johnny Cash.

Another famous historic property, The American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, had a humble beginning as a residence for immigrant workers recruited by the Kohler Company, makers of bath and plumbing fixtures. The elegant Tudor building once contained a pub and a bowling alley for the residents. Today, it is one of America’s premier resorts with a championship golf course and the Kohler Experiential Learning Center, noted for its teambuilding and leadership programs.

The Hotel Viking in Newport, Rhode Island, sits on the city’s premier address, Bellevue Avenue, along which New York’s fabled “400” built their spectacular “summer cottages.” Its graceful architecture and newly renovated interiors recall Newport’s Colonial days as a thriving seaport and later as a yachting center. Built in 1926, The Viking is named for a band of Norsemen who may or may not have established a colony in Newport in 1120. They are said to have built a mysterious stone tower near the hotel that still stands.

Hoteliers accept major challenges and responsibilities in managing a historic property. Maintaining the hotel, meeting rigorous requirements from local, state and federal preservation bodies, operating with an elevated level of sustainable practices while incorporating 21st century technology demands commitment and creativity. In some cases, that obligation extends to the land surrounding the hotel. At Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, the hotel meticulously maintains its stunning Pacific beachfront, a favorite spot for parties, teambuilding, and top-flight entertainment. In Pennsylvania, the Omni Bedford Springs Resort, dating back to 1796 and set amidst the Allegheny mountains, preserves ancient hot springs that first drew the likes of America’s Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams took the waters here, and the springs still feed the hotel swimming pool, one of the nation’s first, where musicians once played while hotel guests swam.

Despite the challenges and initial expense, a historic hotel is an excellent long-term investment, according to Darrell Tamosuinas, Teneo’s CEO. “These buildings were constructed to last and retain a level of craftsmanship and architectural authenticity not being built today,” Mr. Tamosuinas says. “They recall a time when Americans were on the move, building, exploring, creating and incorporating the best of the Old World with the energy and vision of the New, and today provide a destination experience unlike any other.”

That experience is enhanced by state-of-the-art-technology and embraced by a new generation. Thanks to committed hoteliers and investors, we can again imagine the glamour of a Gilded Age when princes and presidents, moguls and movie stars dined, danced, dealt and forged America’s history. These immersions into the best of the past while leaping forward into the 21st century are uniquely available to professional planners and their conferees at historic properties. As independent and boutique brand hotels and resorts, they offer unlimited opportunities for one-of-a-kind meeting, group teambuilding and event experiences.