Club Management - March/April 2008 - (Page 35)

HFTP Insight Thomas G. Smith, CHAE A Bit of Club Perspective By Lou Cook HFTP’s New International Secretary Offers Years of Club Experience to the Association’s Executive Committee club, from the front of the house to the back. This is a great asset when dealing with other management staff. They realize that I have knowledge and experience in their areas and respect that.” Smith enjoys the wide variety offered by country club work. At the Lake Club he developed membership drives, maintained database records, coordinated and consolidated operational and capital budgets, developed and produced a monthly newsletter and brought all menus and promotional materials in house. In November 2000, Smith decided he needed a change of pace and became director of ﬁnance and administration at the Wisconsin Innkeepers Association in Brookﬁeld. Several months later in February 2001, the ClubSystems Group in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, approached Smith with a position as regional associate account manager. ClubSystems hired Smith in February 2001, seven months before Sept. 11. “After Sept. 11, clubs started losing members,” Smith says. “Staffs were cut, clubs weren’t spending, and we couldn’t sell the software.” Clubs had already spent a signiﬁcant amount on computers, and now they were retrenching. Smith says that even the numbers of golf members declined after Sept. 11 because people just didn’t have as much to spend. The good news is that golf membership is now slowly increasing. Ozaukee Country Club offered Smith the post of controller in March 2002, a job he describes as the best situation of his career: “It was good at the Lake Club, but this is a really great situation, with a great staff, general manager and board.” Ozaukee has 400 members, 300 of whom are golf members, and an 18-hole course. Although the property has a pool, golf is the big draw. Smith loves the variety in his job. “Every day you are looking at or doing something different,” he says. Being an active member of HFTP also has helped Smith keep up with the industry. In 1990, Smith joined the Greater Milwaukee chapter and served two terms as president. The chapter membership combines the Milwaukee and Madison areas. “Since I have a ﬁnance and not an accounting degree, I wasn’t sure I was really qualiﬁed,” Smith says, “but everyone was very giving and very open. They are a great group of people.” He credits The Bottomline, HFTP and the Club Manager’s Association of America for educational opportunities within the industry. These opportunities have been invaluable to Smith as he’s held different professional roles. “I need to continue educating myself to understand what’s going on and to be well-rounded,” he said. ❚❘ MARCH/APRIL 2008 • 35 T HFTP, Austin, Texas, USA and Maastricht, The Netherlands, founded in 1952, is the global professional association for ﬁnancial and technology personnel working in hotels, clubs and other hospitality-related businesses. HFTP provides ﬁrst-class educational opportunities, research and publications to more than 4,700 members globally. For more information, visit www.hftp.org. Thomas G. Smith, CHAE, is a true Wisconsin native. He was born in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, educated at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and currently is the CFO at Ozaukee Country Club in Mequon, Wisconsin. As Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals’ (HFTP) international secretary, he starts his term on the association’s executive committee with plenty of club industry experience to help the association best serve its members. Smith studied business administration in ﬁnance and marketing at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, earning a bachelor’s degree and graduating cum laude in 1988. During college he took a job at Oconomowoc Lake Club. Although this inland lake yacht club was ﬁve minutes from where he grew up, Smith had never been there. It was a new world, one that became part of his future. The club opened from early May to the end of October, and during his three seasons as a waiter/bartender/head waiter/banquet supervisor, Smith gained experience in supervising front-of-the-house staff and working on overall member satisfaction. This experience would serve him well later. Right after his 1988 graduation, Smith decided to try a sales position. “I really didn’t feel satisﬁed but just needed a job for awhile.” The good news was that he acquired two years of managerial experience, and when an offer arrived from Oconomowoc Lake Club in 1990, Smith returned as controller. There he could draw on his familiarity with the front-of-the-house knowledge that would help him as a controller. He says, “I have done almost all the jobs possible at a http://www.hftp.org http://www.hftp.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Club Management - March/April 2008

Club Management - March/April 2008 Contents President’s Message Board Governance Technology Human & Professional Resources 2008 CMAA President Peter Homberg: A Profile in Courage, Perserverance Welcome, CMAA 2008 Board of Directors Club Events: Bring Magic to Your Members Club Adopts 'Dependent Parent' Membership Policy Paving a Path to Success Groundbreaking Project Measures Environmental Data for Golf Courses Paradise Preserved HFTP Insight New Directions Global Outreach Products and Services Marketplace Advertiser Index/Advertisers.com Club Wrap

Club Management - March/April 2008

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