At Work with Shelley D. Smith – Executive Vice President for owner and corporate relations at LTD Management Co., a hotel developer and manager based in Chesapeake

I'm a very analytical person. I like to look at data all day long and say, "This is what it means." Each week, I'm looking at how our hotels are performing on occupancy and average daily rates and measuring them against the competition. I also look at our guest- satisfaction reports and employee turnover and review our profit-and-loss statements. I've become more of a strategic planner for LTD- I'm also the "culture police."

I was born in France when my father was in the Air Force, and I grew up in a small town in Indiana not far from Seymour, where John Cougar Mellencamp was born. My folks owned an auction house and a restaurant. From age 11 until about 17, I did everything in the restaurant, including work as a cook, cashier and server. My mother also taught me to do the books.

When I was 18, I went to travel-agency school in Louisville and ended up in Atlanta. To make ends meet, I took a part-time job as a desk clerk at a Courtyard by Marriott hotel. I liked the hotel industry, so when I received a promotion to front-desk supervisor, I quit my travel-agency job. Three months later, I moved to the hotel's restaurant as manager-in-training. After six more months, I became restaurant manager at a Courtyard in Columbia, S.C., and then housekeeping manager at a Courtyard in Greensboro, N.C. My first assignment as general manager was at a Courtyard in Fayetteville, N.C. A year later, I became general manager of the Courtyard on Greenwich Road in Virginia Beach and was there for four years. My last stop was at the Hampton Courtyard, where I was general manager and area general manager for Hampton Roads. I loved Marriott International and was with it for 14 years, but I was starting a family, and the next step would have been a traveling regional director. In 2000, I started with LTD Management Co. as director of operations. At the time, there were three departments in LTD, including operations, and 12 hotels.

Today the company has 13 departments and 23 hotels. We have 11 under construction and scheduled to open in 2008. Ten more are scheduled to open in 2009. Going into a new market and getting up to speed can be an education. Getting each of the company's support staff and executive staff through a change is one of the biggest challenges, but life is all about change. My mother was my mentor, and I learned a work ethic at a very early age, but I also learned a lot from my first Courtyard manager in Atlanta, Bob Coulter. He taught me how important it is to know what your associates are going through on the job and the importance of developing people. The toughest part of my job? Dealing with the labor market is difficult. At LTD, we use advertising, but word-of-mouth is our key. We do a lot of internal promotion, which helps create stability and loyalty, and we try not to recruit from the outside for management. We believe that if you have fully engaged employees, everything comes into line. However, we really want people who fit. We're preparing for our company's annual town hall meeting this Saturday. We hope to have about 1,000 people, including employees and family members, and will have a Renaissance Fair theme. After the picnic, employees can ask the company's executives and owners what ever questions they want.