DOTHAN, AL—Born, raised and now working here, Farrah Adams is the new COO of LBA Hospitality, a company that manages nearly 70 hotels in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Farrah Adams
LBA Hospitality
The company has a goal of growing in those states, but LBA doesn’t want to grow too much, too fast. According to Adams, optimal service must remain the top goal. “I want to grow at the pace to where we can still be great,” explained the new executive.
Currently, LBA Hospitality manages Marriott brands such as Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield Inn & Suites, Residence Inn, SpringHill Suites and TownePlace Suites; Hilton’s Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites by Hilton and Hampton; and IHG’s Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Staybridge Suites.
Formerly the SVP of hospitality, Adams starts off her mornings by checking the M3 link to see how the hotels the company manages did financially and also to see how LBA is trending for the month. Not surprisingly, Adams also tracks the hotels that may need a little extra support if they’re falling behind on their benchmark for guest satisfaction. “We also do financials for each of our hotels and those fall on the end of the month. I like to keep up with everything so it keeps me in the know—that way, there aren’t a lot of surprises when that document hits the email,” she explained.
Adams contends she doesn’t want to grow just for the sake of the company—she’s also thinking about its employees. “I also want to provide development opportunities to my team members,” she said. So, as we open hotels and take over hotels in different markets, team members can grow their careers, eventually leading teams. Providing opportunities like that is huge and a priority of mine.”
This approach is something Adams can identify with, as it’s exactly the career path she took. After graduating with a degree in accounting from Troy University, she felt confined in the realm of public accounting. “Accounting and taxes really did not resonate with me, so I sat down with the owner of the firm I was working for and asked if he had any clients I would be interested in working for,” said Adams. It was a bold move for the recent college graduate, and her boss informed her of an opening at LBA as an administrative assistant.
Now, as COO, Adams recalled herstart with the hospitality company. “I sat down with Barry Kraselsky [the past president]and we interviewed for two hours,” she said. At the time, in 1999, the company had only 16 hotels under its wing. Adams knew nothing about hospitality and had a beach trip scheduled that weekend. So, ever the go-getter with a thirst for knowledge, she took home a Fairfield Inn brand standard manual and an opening timeline for the LBA properties and studied the documents vigorously before beginning work Monday morning.
Because the company was so small and Adams had a keen interest in hospitality, Adams was able to wear many hats. “I was involved in revenue management when it just started in the industry. I was even able to go on sales calls and be a part of our sales blitz process early on,” she said. But those are not the only hats she wore: The COO was truly hands-on when opening hotels back then, even hanging up shower curtains and placing batteries in clock radios. “Everything that you experience as a guest—before the hotel opens—somebody has to do that,” explained Adams.
Adams’ roots in accounting brought her back to working in that department briefly. “I worked for a year in accounting—and I loved it. But, I loved the interaction with people more,” she said. “I wanted to get into operations so I could interact with the team.”
Adams enjoys tackling difficult situations head on and heralds her ability to bring people together and understanding them as a major asset to her leadership at LBA Hospitality. “When there’s a problem, it’s important for the team to get to the core, to talk about it and move forward. I feel as though I am kind of a calming force in those situations,” she said. “We manage people. We employ multiple generations that are all motivated differently. Understanding how those differences can work together and having the right mix of people is extremely important.”
Adams credits Kraselsky as her mentor. “He has always pushed me outside of my comfort zone and had more confidence in me than I even had in myself. He has allowed me to learn anything that I wanted to and never held me back,” she said. Adams describes his leadership as being solutions-driven—which she also embraces.
Among the many reasons Adams has been with LBA for almost 20 years is its culture. “We don’t just talk the talk. We walk the walk. We truly have an open-door policy. Any associate can call me for any reason, at any time, and I am going to be that listening ear,” she noted. And when LBA adds to its portfolio, Adams said team members are not just walking around making lists of things that need to be changed or ordered. “We are actually fixing them. We ‘dig in.’ We really try to deliver on our company culture,” she said.
And delivering on company culture often leads to success, which is, of course, paramount for Adams, who is focused on bringing value to owners. “We are looking at how to control costs and how to improve the bottom line for owners,” she said. “We have seen a significant increase in RevPAR over the last couple of years just because of occupancy growth.
“We really want to be grassroots and be good stewards of our revenue and make sure we bring value to our owners,” she concluded. HB
