Where It All Started

Throughout my childhood, I had the opportunity to travel around the world. To this day, I love to visit new and different places. Because of all this I grew up with a passion for hospitality, I was a people person and had a hard time saying no. My junior year of high school rolled around, I took the ACT and started to think, what did I want to do for the rest of my life. I considered hospitality but thought the hours were long, schedule was crazy and the pay wasn't the best. I thought about the next best thing, marketing and sales. I loved to create new ways of selling things, because of this I saw a promising future working in a marketing firm, yet I was never 100% sure. By Christmas break of my senior year I decided to attend a private college in central Florida, majoring in marketing in sales.

Over Christmas break, my family and I went on cruise to celebrate the new year. This was going to be the last cruise that the entire family would go on for a while as my brother was graduating from college, heading in a new and exciting direction. I was graduating high school, entering a new and exciting chapter in my life. We sailed out of Fort Lauderdale on the Nieuw Amsterdam sailing in the Eastern Caribbean. This was my fifteenth cruise, I had been to all of the ports of call, it was supposed to be an uneventful cruise, just time well spent with the family.

This cruise was unlike any other. I kept feeling like working within hospitality was something I should be doing. On the second to last night, I asked to meet with the Hotel Director, Mr. Stan Kuppens. For those who may have never been on a cruise the Hotel Director is the senior officer of hotel operations, essentially the general manager of the cruise ship. The guest service agent basically laughed and explained that he is an extremely important man and has far more important things to be doing. I walked away very disappointed and confused, contemplating maybe marketing and sales was the right path for me. The next day, while I was getting ready for dinner, guest services called saying the Hotel Director has fifteen minutes at 5:45. I told her I would be there. Dinner started at 5:45 so I would only miss the first fifteen minutes. I met with Stan Kuppens for over an hour and half. Talking with him was life changing. He knew so much and had experienced a great deal. He cautioned me saying it was a tough career and to truly be successful I had to have a passion for people and serving them. From that moment on I knew I wanted to work in hospitality.