www.calodging.com September/October 2022 13 HOTELIER PROFILE PRESIDENT AND CEO, EVANS HOTELS, SAN DIEGO Robert Gleason ROBERT GLEASON HAS BEEN ON A nearly four-decade journey to the top of the hospitality profession—all starting with a summer job in high school. Back in 1983, Gleason went to work in the reservations department at Evans Hotels, a family-owned business in San Diego. He didn’t know it then, but that would be the start of a career that would see him become the company’s President and CEO—the first person outside the Evans family to hold that position in the 60-plus year history of the company. From high school through college, he continued to work part-time for Evans, moving from reservations to the front desk, the switchboard, and eventually into training as a management intern. Still, while he had worked his way up quickly, Gleason had his sights set on a very different path. “Hospitality was never something I considered as a permanent assignment—I actually wanted to have a career in theater or arts management,” he said. “But I’m a curious, life-long learner, and my early assignments provided intense opportunities to learn and grow.” So, instead of the theater, he went back to Evans when he earned his degree in 1987, now as a full-time employee in management. Rather than working at one property, he was involved in aspects of finance, transactions, and development for the company’s properties, including hospitality, commercial, and residential. As he continued to gain more experience, he also became more convinced that this was the industry for him. “I realized there was more than enough in our industry generally, and in our company specifically, to keep me interested and engaged,” he said. “As I added more responsibilities, there were challenges aplenty and also unlimited opportunities to continue learning.” After the economic downturn of the early 1990s, he moved into operations, becoming the company’s CFO, handling duties from contracting to compliance and managing outside counsel. The latter responsibility sparked his interest in the law, so to his already busy schedule he added the evening law school program at the University of San Diego, earning his law degree in 1998—and then added the title of General Counsel to his CFO role. In addition, Gleason formerly taught a course in Hospitality Law and Policy at the Payne School of Hospitality at San Diego State University. During that time, he recalled his most challenging assignment was serving as Renovation Project Manager during the redevelopment of the company’s luxury property, The Lodge at Torrey Pines. He described the experience as “a grueling 18 months,” but well worth it because of the result. Gleason said his long experience in the business has been essential to shaping his perspective on his colleagues and employees, and his approach of engaging them through a combination of personal and professional support, recognition, and growth. “The most important lesson I’ve learned is that employees are central to everything we do,” he said. “Sometimes leaders think their job is to manage the bottom line. But it’s really to take care of employees, because employees in turn take care of our guests, and if we’re all doing our jobs properly, our guests take care of the bottom line.” It’s also the reason he believes in “hiring for attitude and training for skill,” something that comes through when he interviews prospective hires. “I always ask in interviews about people’s first jobs, those early experiences that aren’t on resumes,” he said. “You learn a lot about people by understanding what motivated them early in life and the lessons they learned from those experiences. Nearly everyone in this industry has worked their way up and that perspective is critical to managing with equal parts empathy and rigor.” His success, and his drive for lifelong learning, led to his being offered the job of President and CEO in 2014. And while that comes with its own unique set of responsibilities, Gleason views it more as a continuation of what he’s been doing since that summer job 39 years ago. “In some sense, I’ve only had one job, although I have had many different duties,” he said. “In many ways, my career has come full circle to my theater days. As with directing, I have the chance to lead a team responsible for creating an experience that leads to lasting memories.” “In some sense, I’ve only had one job, although I have had many different duties,” Robert Gleason said. continues
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