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It started the way many adventures do when boy meets girl, or in this case, when transportation executive met flight attendant. Their passion for travel ran deep – he had cruised the seas by destroyer as a supply officer in the Navy, and she had spent her life around her grandfather’s resort and on the road with her father, who worked for the Great Northern Pacific and Burlington railway lines. Their passion for family would take them further abroad, and ultimately, to the top of a rapidly growing international travel company.
Throughout their 40-year marriage, John and Gail Ueberroth and their two children traipsed the world from Siberia to Cambodia to India and Australia. “Our mom cooked up some pretty unusual trips for us – leadership camp in Moscow where we rapelled off buildings; survival camp in South Africa where we used plants to brush our teeth, fried flying ants and jumped off cliffs into waterfalls. Looking back, it was fun,” says Casey. “But we always went grudgingly.” Which is not unlike what happened when their parents purchased what is now known as Preferred Hotel Group.
In 2004, after a 30-year career in the travel industry that included a term as CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, John Ueberroth was working for Ambassadors Group, an educational travel company where he is still chairman of the board. The company looked into acquiring Preferred Indecorp, an organization that helped independent hotels band together for marketing strength. Although Ambassadors passed on the deal, the Ueberroths were impressed by the company’s network of upscale hotels and its rich history. Gail believed that with a little polish, it would flourish as a private company. “And I just said, ‘Why don’t we do it?’” she says with a hearty smile.
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So they bought Indecorp, renamed it Preferred Hotels Group and set about fine-tuning the business itself as well as the level of luxury at the properties they would represent. With enough consistency and a loyalty program, they would also provide a service to discerning travelers. Just as people might choose Four Seasons because they feel the brand is reliable, through Preferred, travelers can rely on a service standard while staying at a variety of unique, independent properties. (Orange County’s Montage Laguna Beach, Surf & Sand Resort, and The Balboa Bay Club & Resort are all members.) But before they could promote their brand, they had to visit every one of the group’s 209 hotels, which they vowed to do within the first year. From The Plaza Hotel in New York to a 12-room bed and breakfast in Tennessee where Davy Crockett once stayed, they needed to inspect the service and condition of each property to ensure it was up to snuff – a daunting task for even the most road-savvy traveler. “We hoped the kids would help,” says Gail. Unfortunately, she admits, “like any kids, they wanted to do anything but what you do.”
But then Lindsey, who was with Andersen Consulting at the time, agreed to sit in on a few meetings and give her ideas. She was blindsided by a business she found too cool to pass up. “As the kind of person who will fly to Orlando just to get frequent flier miles, I was like a fish with a big hook,” she says. Her brother Casey, who was happy managing branches of Wells Fargo in San Francisco, says, “I told her she was crazy for working with Mom and Dad.” But then he noticed that every time Lindsey called, it was from somewhere like Portugal or Paris. “I suddenly felt that I was on lockdown in San Francisco,” he says about the time before he too jumped onboard, ultimately to head up a new golf division.
Soon his wife, Brooke, was using her background in publishing to offer advice on marketing and communications. Although her husband and sister-in-law warned her to think long and hard before joining a family business that would blur the lines between work and play, Brooke longed for her own days growing up abroad in Europe and Asia. Now she heads up the company’s communications department, and like the rest of the family, spends three weeks out of every month on the road.
And then there is the family’s longtime friend Sarah Clark, who is affectionately referred to as “the Pseudoroth.” She was working for a Los Angeles ad agency and pitched the Ueberroths on a rebranding strategy for Preferred Hotel Group. Although their companies didn’t work together on that project, when a year later the Ueberroths needed to launch a new brand, they brought Sarah inside to create Preferred Boutique alongside Lindsey. “She’s our adopted daughter,” says Gail, “though her mom might disagree.” She didn’t come to them with as big an appetite for travel as the naturally born children, but she adapted quickly when Gail took her to India. “I didn’t even want to go,” she says. “But I came back in a sari.” The others laugh knowingly about the resulting “Indian phase.”
“Our personalities balance each other out,” says Lindsey as the others nod. “I’m about the big picture, not the details, while Brooke is detailed, methodical and calming. Casey is the comedian and the deal maker, and Sarah is the one with endless energy and enthusiasm, the one who runs up and down the halls high-fiveing people.”
Fortunately, their job descriptions are as distinct as their talents, which they feel keeps things from getting heated when their offices are laid out one next to another. When working with family, work/life disagreements are a risk. “We all have a shared passion and that resonates through the rest of the company where everyone has their own niche,” says Casey.
Which brings us to another risk – the question of nepotism. Were others in the company skeptical about the Ueberroths hiring their family and friends? Of course. But a few factors kept it from being an issue. First, they were careful to hire their children only after they had done well in the outside business world. Second, the younger generation’s success at Preferred was not a given – they were expected to work hard and prove themselves. But most important, rather than simply bringing their family into the company, the Ueberroths brought the rest of the company into their family. Not only do co-workers travel together, the entire worldwide management team gets together three times a year. “Camaraderie can build quickly when you’re away from home spending so much time together. A new person comes in and before you know it we’re in each others weddings,” says Sarah.
But as with the kids, it’s not just fun and games – a lot is expected of each employee and a lot of responsibility is given. To create a passionate and performance-based environment, the Ueberroths hired people with an entrepreneurial spirit. If they didn’t work for Preferred, John feels almost every one of them would have their own business. So that is more or less what he gives them within the company. Just like within the family, each employee is encouraged to own their slice of the business, to lead, to take risks and to fail, and to push themselves. When they dream something up, they’re encouraged to give it a try, and if they fail big, they just rebuild. They are encouraged to make plans for right now, for the next six months, the next year, and even as far out as five years.
“Even if you’ve just launched a new brand and you’re thrilled with that, [John’s] first question is: ‘Okay, what’s next?’” says Lindsey. “What do you mean what’s next? Ugh.” She laughs as she says this and then adds, “But we all love it.” No wonder they’ve gone from 200 hotels to more than 500 in four short years.
