Coming Home

From his seat in the helicopter that would take him out of harm’s way, Doug Thornton looked down at the battered and beaten Louisiana Superdome, and he cried.

Hurricane Katrina had angrily lashed out at the mammoth New Orleans domed stadium five days earlier, but it was the first time Thornton had been above the structure to witness the devastation of a peeled-back roof — an image that the world had come to see through non-stop television coverage of the hurricane and its deadly aftermath.

“I will never forget that view from above,” Thornton, a regional vice president for SMG, says of Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005, when he finally evacuated his own facility. “As we flew across the city I saw that the water at my house had reached the top of the door. As I looked back toward the city I saw the damaged roof and building, and at that time didn’t know whether it was going to make it. At that moment in time I just had my serious doubts.”

Glenn Menard had only recently been promoted to general manager for both the Superdome and the neighboring New Orleans Arena, home to the NBA Hornets. A native New Orleanian, Menard, too, was ushered away from the carnage below by helicopter. Looking down, Menard was slack-jawed in disbelief at what he saw. “I didn’t know if I had seen the last football game ever (at the Superdome),” he says in a hushed tone. “When we lifted off and looked down, there was nothing but walls. There was smoke billowing, like a war zone.”

Even as the helicopter whirred away and the Superdome faded from view, the importance of the city’s long-standing symbolic structure of strength and definition would soon come into view. For the city to return to any sense of normalcy in the future, New Orleanians would need the Superdome — and the Superdome would need New Orleanians.

It is 6:45 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 25, 2006. A nation is preparing to watch on television in record numbers as the New Orleans Saints host the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football, the first time the Saints will have played at the Superdome since a preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens on the Friday before Hurricane Katrina struck. Already, a number of bands have played during the day outside the Superdome for a crowd that has thirsted for this day. A giant banner unfurls, welcoming fans back to the Dome as confetti sprays the air in a celebration that is pure New Orleans.

Thornton is on the field to make sure all systems are go for a pregame concert featuring U2 and Green Day. “I walked to the southwest corner of the stadium where the Saints enter and exit,” he recalls. “I was standing on about the 15-yard line and knew that the lights would soon go down for the concert.

“It was then that I realized I was standing on the same spot at 6:30 a.m. the day the hurricane hit and the roof was falling and we had just lost power. This time, I turned my back to the field and looked into the crowd and sections of people with happy faces. It was almost in the same element of light last year that
I looked into the same sections where people covered their heads with blankets to keep dry from the rain pouring in.

“I looked up at the roof where a year ago there was a 50- foot gash. I have to admit that I was overcome with emotion. Once the lights went back on, it gave me total closure.”

The game draws closer and the crowd is at a fever pitch waiting for kickoff, needing the same type of closure that Thornton experienced just moments before. The bands have concluded in appropriate fashion with U2’s “It’s A Beautiful Day.”

Menard pauses for a minute and takes a seat in the SMG suite, where he’s joined by many heroes who saved lives in those first fateful hours and days, including the likes of Col. Glenn Curtis, a Chief of the Joint Staff with the Louisiana National Guard. Menard lost his house in the hurricane but knows it could’ve been much worse.

Everyone in the stadium stands for the playing of the national anthem, and at its conclusion Menard sits back down and slowly wipes a tear from the corner of his eye, he too overcome with emotion.

The Miracle Men
Doug Thornton and Glenn Menard call the Superdome’s reopening barely more than a year after Hurricane Katrina a “miracle.” They also acknowledge that New Orleans needs more miracles to happen in neighborhoods that are still trying to recover, but that the Superdome’s opening can give hope to the thousands of residents trying to rebuild and come home.

“I don’t want to overstate it or be overly dramatic,” says Thornton, “but if you look at the big picture, the reopening of the Dome was pass or fail. If you pass, it jump starts the recovery. People suddenly get inspired, they get motivated, they believe. So much of New Orleans in post-Katrina is about belief, confidence, willpower and survival.”

Unquestionably, Thornton and Menard are two of the leaders who have helped lead this revival back into New Orleans, and they were two of the more prominent faces and voices after the hurricane. The two complement each other so well that if one is speaking and needs to take a break, the other can easily slide in and finish the sentence and conversation.

Their backgrounds are disparate, with Thornton coming from the corporate world of oil and gas, and Menard from an eclectic mix of venue management, including opening major racetrack stadiums and managing venues for World Cup soccer and an Olympic Games. Their strengths are coolness under

pressure and a steadfast resolve and belief in positive outcomes. All those would be needed in rebuilding the Superdome, which in Thornton’s words was “like watching a loved one die of a terminal illness … and then brought back to life.”

Leaders All the Way

Thousands of heroes emerged during and after Hurricane Katrina, many of whom go unrecognized but not unappreciated. Because of their positions on the “front line” at the Superdome, Doug Thornton (Right) and Glenn Menard (below, left) aren’t just visible but have proven themselves as strong leaders. The same must be said of their employer, Philadelphia-based SMG, which acted swiftly to not only save lives in New Orleans but opened its managed facilities in other parts of the country to receive evacuees.

Thornton on SMG: “They’re self-performing a significant portion of work in the rebuilding, including cleaning, plumbing, HVAC, mechanical work, painting and light relamping. Everyone in the industry has been great and shown their concern in different ways, and I have to say that SMG has been incredibly responsive throughout. This was a situation none of us had experienced before, but the company has been there for us all along the way.” Thornton on leadership: “Leadership is two things. First, it’s the ability to motivate people to achieve something special, something more than they would normally accomplish. It’s also the ability to take risks and make bold moves.

“The landscape is littered with people who quit and give up. I’m talking about making calculated decisions with the best available information and staying with it. Below that you must have respect of people and you must be a good listener — someone who can process information and take that information to make good decisions. You must also have the ability to accept responsibility, and not be afraid of it. If you make the wrong decision, you must learn from it.”

Thornton on the role of the Superdome in New Orleans: “People saw what happened in there. The Superdome was the poster child for Katrina, the misery and suffering. So many New Orleanians look at the Superdome as an icon in the city. It’s a brand you can’t get out of your mind. The people of New Orleans have great pride in the building.”

Menard on his native New Orleanians: “It meant so much to the workers to be back at the Superdome. It was a spirit-lifter because so many of them were gone for that year, people who had worked there for 10, 15, 20 years. They had come back from long distances to work, to be part of the Dome team.

“We got feedback from New Orleanians who were displaced but saw the game on television and they were proud of how the building looked. This is finished, but there are still parts of New Orleans that really need help. That dual message is a difficult one sometimes. It’s a tale of two cities.”

Menard on the New Orleans Hornets-Los Angeles Lakers game in March 2006 at the New Orleans Arena next to the Superdome: “It was like a giant reunion when people came to punch in. When the fans sat in their seats and the people they had sitting around for three years, they would ask each other, ‘How’d you do?’ That meant, of course, did you lose your house? That’s what people asked each other.”

Menard on the lasting images of the Superdome and Hurricane Katrina: “All night long they were moving these hospital patients to the landing zone. Red and blue lights and ‘Get out of the way!’ You hear the choppers; you smell the jet fuel. It’s just like Apocalypse Now.”

Milestones Along the Way
Thornton was born in Houston but moved to Shreveport at age two and was raised there. He earned a football scholarship to McNeese State University to play quarterback but tore an ACL and had his athletic career come to an early halt. Thornton earned a degree in business management in 1980 and launched his oil and gas career back in Houston with Pennzoil Producing Co., where he bought and sold gas leases.

Thornton picked up a second degree from the University of Houston in petroleum land management and in 1984 moved to New Orleans to start an oil and gas exploration office for Transco Energy. After that company divested itself from oil and gas in 1988, Thornton worked as vice president of land and acquisitions for Taylor Energy. At the same time, New Orleans was launching a sports foundation, and Thornton served as a civic volunteer with the group. “I didn’t realize the impact that would have going forward,” he says.

That impact meant securing a bid for New Orleans to host the 1992 Olympic Track & Field Trials and hosting the 1993 NCAA Final Four. By 1994, at the request of several board members, Thornton made the career jump and took over as president of the New Orleans Sports Foundation, where he served for three years before moving on as general manager of the Superdome.

“I took a nontraditional path from the private sector side,” he says. “I learned in those early oil days about organization, the ability to evaluate and analyze and conduct due diligence.”

Those abilities came into play in the days following Katrina, when Thornton watched with chagrin as uninformed voices appeared on television and said the Superdome would have to be demolished. Thornton knew the rebuilding would be the most daunting task imaginable, but he wasn’t ready to concede the facility’s demise. Originally targeted for a December 2006 reopening, some milestones occurred along the way for a September start.

“The first milestone was doing the assessment,” Thornton says. “We had to know what was broken so we could figure
out what needed to be fixed and how much it would cost. We didn’t have a day to spare. We started the assessment immediately, and within two weeks of Ellerbe Becket being here, the structural people said the Dome was sound. We knew right then we could rebuild.”

Thornton isn’t exaggerating when he calls rebuilding the Superdome a “history-maker” — and history was indeed made in early December 2005 when Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco pushed the second milestone along by signing an unprecedented executive order to help speed up the rebuilding process.

Governor Blanco was smart enough to know what rebuilding the Superdome would mean to New Orleanians. “She said to rebuild because the Dome is hugely symbolic,” Thornton says. “She said, ‘We’ve got to take this step. You’re going in the right direction. You just keep doing what you’re doing.’ ”

The third milestone occurred when then NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue arrived on December 5 to tour the Superdome for the first time. Within a month of that visit, a decision was made to accelerate the opening from December to September. “None of us really knew if we could do that,” says Thornton. “We took a blind leap of faith. There were so many roadblocks and obstacles still left to travel.”

The NFL contributed a $15 million grant with a $5 million matching contribution for any overruns. “The commissioner said, ‘Give us a place to play, some turf, adequate bathrooms, life safety where the fans are comfortable and we’ll play football there,’ ” Thornton says.

The last roadblock, and the new one that stood the tallest was refinancing $195 million in outstanding debt. That process took 90 days and was completed at the end of February. All the while during those three months, the rebuilding had started as every day was critical. Finally, Broadmoor was hired as the construction manager following a public bid.

“I really think the story isn’t just what we went through during the storm,” says Thornton. “I mean, that place was beaten and battered. The story is how we were able to come back. We got knocked down below our knees. But we got back up and through guts, determination and a lot of leadership from others we were able to pull it together. That’s the story.”

Hitting Home
Glenn Menard grew up in New Orleans and took a circuitous route in his career before landing back in his hometown. Menard attended Louisiana-Lafayette (then the University of Southwestern Louisiana), and after starting in engineering, switched and earned a marketing degree in 1971.

But as far back as high school, Menard was dabbling in the public assembly facility industry, working at local drag strips as an announcer. While in college, Menard even opened a racetrack in Houma, La. After college he managed the track for a brief period of time before moving to California and a track in Irwindale. From there it was back to Lafayette, where Menard ran the campus student union complex.

“It was like a mini-convention center with meeting rooms, ballrooms and a theater,” he says. “We did all of the programming for the campus like concerts, speakers and more. We ran the coliseum when it wasn’t being used for athletics, and worked with promoters on shows.”

In the spring of 1986 Menard moved to Ennis, Texas, to open the Texas Motorplex, a revolutionary racetrack that included 30,000 seats and 24 suites. Menard ran the track until 1993, when he went to work for World Cup USA as the Cotton Bowl stadium

“The story isn’t just what we went through during the storm — it’s how we were able to come back. We got knocked down below our knees, but through guts, determination and a lot of leadership from others, we were able to pull it together

manager in Dallas when that city hosted the spectacle in 1994. After a stint working for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and to Texas again to do some consulting work, Menard settled home in 1998 and participated in the redesign of parts of the New Orleans Arena. He was involved in doing the initial bookings for the facility, as well as creating the operations plan and the marketing plan. The venue made money each of the first three years with minor league hockey, concerts and other events. Finally, the NBA’s Charlotte franchise relocated to New Orleans in 2002, which required spending some $12 million to make the venue NBA-ready.

When Thornton was promoted to regional vice president on March 1, 2005, Menard was named general manager of the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena. It wasn’t long before his job description took on a harrowing twist. “I considered the promotion my dream job,” says Menard. “A few months later we’re sitting there with 10,000 people, roof ripped open, water streaming in and you can’t think much about the future. We were focused on taking care of people, getting them fed and getting them water.”

Menard says that the Superdome employed 190 full-time staff when the storm hit and that when they came back, 153 were laid off. Since then the facility has ramped up its hiring based on budget and activity, staffing about 110 when the NFL season opened.

“We’ve had thousands of applications over the Internet,” he says. “It’s because people want to be part of building the Dome back. Our management staff is made up of folks who are returnees. Still, we have had to focus hard on recruitment because there are other job opportunities out there.”

It’s about 4:30 the afternoon of the game and Menard and Farrow Bouton, director of event services, are in a large meeting room reviewing procedures with hundreds of employees who will be ushers, ticket takers and all the other positions that make a professional football game go smoothly.

Before handing the microphone to Bouton, Menard speaks in excited tones to the assembled audience. “This is the night we have waited months for,” he yells out. “The whole nation is going to be watching to see how we perform. This is your opportunity to shine and show the world how great you all are!”

“Back in February we went aggressive on the Internet to hire,” adds Menard. “We had some job fairs and picked up hundreds of applications. These were from people we never thought would be interested, like retired teachers. Our pitch was, ‘Hey, come help us rebuild the Dome.’ The people have responded. It’s not about the money. It is about being there.”

And so they were all there on Sept. 25, 2006, openly shedding tears and welcoming an icon back to the city. As it could only happen on this night, the Saints dominated the Falcons.

“We did not want Katrina to be the final chapter in the Dome’s colorful history,” says Thornton. “That’s why we all work 12-14 hours a day to do whatever it takes to get the job done. We have a great love for the city and a great love for the stadium, and we know there’s a lot riding on that.”

There’s still a long way to go before that ride becomes smooth, but at least the bumps have become more bearable since the Saints came marching in — to the Superdome.