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By R.V. Baugus
The cat, as they say, was out of the bag.
The veteran instructor at the Public Assembly Facility Management School at
Oglebay was leading a course in 2006 at the school, where he had taught
every year since way back in 1987, when the school was only in its second
year.
Mere feet away sat an eager-to-learn student, one of hundreds of faces that
the instructor had come to see over the years in this particular course on
ethics. “I couldn’t look at him,” says the instructor. “I could not look at
him!”
But, adds the instructor, others at the school connected the dots and the
secret was no more. “We had both agreed that we would keep it real quiet. He
and I weren’t going to talk about what was going on. We weren’t going to
communicate. He was going to have his life and I would have mine,” he says.
“It was interesting and I didn’t think anything about it. It was a little
emotional; here’s my son sitting in this class that I’ve been teaching for
20 years.”
Scott Williams, CFE, senior vice president of facilities for the Larry H.
Miller Sports & Entertainment Group, could not have been a prouder dad to
see his son, Justin, guest services manager at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the
University of Utah, come to learn at a school that the elder Williams had a
strong hand in starting.
The intersection offered a glimpse of the present and the future of the
industry. While Scott Williams has been a cornerstone of professional
development within the public assembly facility management industry, his
thirst to mold and build tomorrow’s leaders is unquenchable.
“I enjoy the educational side of this business,” he says in a quiet voice in
a suite at Franklin Covey Field, a stadium that Williams manages and houses
the Salt Lake Bees, a Triple A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels of
Anaheim.
“One of the things I point to with the greatest amount of pride is that I
have eight or nine former intern students now running their own buildings. I
love what that means and what that stands for.”
As if on cue, a young man enters the suite. Williams asks the college intern
to think about a position that is open at the arena for later in the year,
and tells him that he believes the student would be well suited for the
position.
It is obvious that Scott Williams is always teaching, always preparing
bright, young talent, regardless of whether he is in West Virginia teaching
a class of industry professionals or at a baseball stadium in Salt Lake City
talking to an intern.
A veteran educator, Scott Williams (second from
right) participates in industry panels and enjoys "the educational side of the business," he says.
Have Ticket, Will Sell
Scott Williams’ college career seemingly got off to about as rocky a start
as the mountains that surround the idyllic Brigham Young University campus
in Provo, Utah. Born in Cheyenne, Wyo., as the youngest of three children,
Williams graduated high school in 1964 and from there set sail for BYU.
Actually, Williams set sail for nearby ski slopes and now reflects with a
laugh that, “I went skiing more than I went to school, and my GPA at the end
of my freshman year reflected that I liked to ski more than I liked the
books.” Williams pauses and then admits with a sheepish grin, “That’s still
true, by the way.”
The next year Williams was given the opportunity to serve a mission for the
Mormon church. He left home at the age of 19 bound for London, where he says
he spent two of the greatest years of his life as a missionary. “I was
trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to be,” he says. “I talked
to a lot of people about important things. When I came back, I was 21 and
certainly had my feet under me a little more and knew who I was. School
became much more important because I was two years behind my graduating
class at the time. I came back and was very interested in my studies.”
Williams hit his studies hard enough, in fact, that he combined his degree
in marketing and communications and eventually earned a Bachelor of Science
degree in business management with a minor in communications.
Scott Williams (right) has been at the
helm as EnergySolutions Arena played host to Utah
Jazz fans, most recently during the 2007 NBA playoffs. |
Upon his return to college, Williams also
happened to rent a house from a man who was the athletic ticket manager at
BYU. Shortly thereafter, landlord offered tenant an opportunity to work in
the ticket office. “We didn’t have computers at the time, and I sold hard
tickets,” says Williams. “In the summer I would go out with the players and
coaches and we would go to parades and hand out brochures, balloons, you
name it.
“I enjoyed the selling and would stay after events and clean the tills and
make the deposits. It gave me great exposure to sports teams and the
business side of athletics and facilities.”
While in college, Williams somehow found time to work 30 to 35 hours per
week selling football and basketball tickets, live in a basement apartment
and marry his wife, Deanna. “I had a ’66 Chevelle Malibu and thought life
was really, really good,” he says.
Finally, with degree in hand, the upstart businessman took a position as a
“detailer,” or pharmaceutical representative. “Hey, I had a company car and
was making $850 a month,” says Williams. “But, you know, now I was sitting
in a doctor’s office waiting to talk or going to nursing homes. It wasn’t
like being around college athletics.”
If the move from tills to pills wasn’t exactly exciting, the suddenness with
which Williams found himself back on campus happened fast when the
university announced it was building a new arena on campus that would boost
capacity from 10,000 to 23,000. Oh, that and they needed an assistant
manager to help run the venue.
“The university came and offered me the job,” says Williams. “I went from
$850 a month with a company car down to $750 a month with no car. But I
jumped at the opportunity to get back to the university.”
Fork in the Road
After working for a couple of years
in his new position, Williams faced his next career decision: whether to go
into sports administration or facility management. “There is a big
difference, but I decided to go to facilities,” he says. “I think I could’ve
done either one, but while I saw what was happening with coaches and
athletic administrators and the fact they could lose their jobs because an
18-year-old kid dropped a pass in the end zone …”
Advantage: facility management.
Before you knew it, Williams was at the university for 19 years and 11
months and the father of five children when another opportunity came
calling. The NBA Utah Jazz had played its games at the Salt Palace and was
in the process of building a new arena that became the Delta Center. During
his last two years at BYU’s Marriott Center, the Jazz played a couple of
exhibition games on campus against Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers. Both
games packed the 23,000-seat arena. It didn’t hurt that Boston’s roster
included BYU alums Danny Ainge, Fred Roberts and Greg Kite, and that the
“Showtime” Lakers boasted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and others.
It was also a time when Williams began consulting to Jazz president Dave
Checketts, new team owner Larry Miller and others about the Salt Palace.
With player salaries skyrocketing, it was obvious that the team could not
continue playing in the 12,600-seat Salt Palace.
EnergySolutions Arena was called the
Delta Center until late last year, when EnergySolutions purchased
the naming rights. Scott Williams (below) came on
board as general manager one year before the building opened in
1991. |
“Larry Miller is still very passionate about the
team, the market and this city,” says Williams. “At the time, he started a
grassroots group of people of which I was a part to determine if we built a
new building where it would be and what it would look like. I was a
consultant and adviser with no intent on leaving the university.
“But as time moved on I became more and more passionate about building a
building out of the ground. That’s a good opportunity for any building
manager to be able to put a thumbprint on building a building and doing
things the right way.”
Williams negotiated with Miller that he would make a decision one year
before the new arena opened on whether he would leave the university. “When
the walls started going up, the roof went up, the steel starts coming
together and to know this all started with drawing things on napkins … I
couldn’t visualize handing the keys off to somebody else,” says Williams.
“It made for some tough, tough nights for me because I was emotionally tied
to BYU and emotionally tied to the building. But to not have to move to
another city to jump your career from this level to that level, I would be
crazy not to do it. I even went into it saying I would do it for a couple of
years, but not forever.”
Suffice to say that Williams came in one year before the building opened in
1990-91 as the general manager. “If you look at my name badge,” he says,
“you will see my employee number (00001). I was literally the first
employee.”
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Father & Son
An interview with Justin Williams,
guest services manager at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of
Utah.
What has your dad taught you as far as how
to be successful in the public assembly facility business?
“People are important, no matter where they are on the
organizational chart. Also, it’s important to continue learning, and
striving to stay up to date with new trends in the public assembly
business.”
What influence has he had on you?
“I’ve been around my dad in the different facilities that he has
managed as a visitor and as an employee, as well as attended several
IAAM trade shows throughout my life. I have often thought about how
he handles situations in his buildings and have given him a call to
discuss such situations. He often has great insights on how to
handle many of the situations that I have faced.”
What was it like to be at Oglebay last year
and actually in a class that he taught?
“For both of our sakes we did not make our relationship known to
many others at the school. We both did what was expected of us in
our different areas, but it was fun to see him doing the teaching
that he has loved and talked about for years.” |
All About Professional
Development
Williams became interested in professional
development at, oh, about the same time he first entered the industry. He
recalls a visit in 1971 when he was a 25-year-old rookie assistant manager
to UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion where John Wooden’s great Bruin teams played.
There, Williams met Jim Klain, who was the building manager despite officing
at a performing arts venue on campus. The two talked for more than a day
about the business and Williams remembers Klain’s parting words: “You really
need to get involved in IAAM.”
Those inspirational words plotted a course for Williams that would propel
him to where he is today — one of the most recognized, respected and honored
leaders within the industry when the topic is leadership and professional
development. He attended his first district meeting that year in Tucson when
different-colored tablecloths told attendees whether they could sit at the
manager’s table or the assistant manager’s table. Williams remembers sitting
at the back next to Leonard Zerilli, and the two struck an immediate
friendship that lasts to this day.
From there, Williams soaked it all in. He traveled to Austin to visit Dean
Justice and learn about working with athletes, dorms and coaches. He visited
Tom Parkinson in Champaign-Urbana to see his drape and rigging system. He
became a regular at district and IAAM annual conferences and, in fact, in 35
years has missed only one district meeting (a combined meeting in Austin)
and one annual conference (in 1984 when he took a six-month leave from the
university to help with the Olympic Committee for the Summer Games in Los
Angeles).
“I’ve always gone as a sponge,” says Williams.
“I’ve always come away with something that I could use or tweak. I’ve
attended workshops. I’m always learning and that is still very much the
case.”
Williams became involved in District 7 as a
district vice president and remembers the formation of the Public Assembly
Facility Management School at Oglebay that people like Dexter King, Al Antee
and Bob Mayer helped start. Because Williams taught on a college campus,
King approached him the second year of the school in 1987 and asked if he
would teach a course. There were 25 students the first year of the school
and another 25 were added the second year. Today, as chair of the Board of
Regents, Williams says that to date this year’s school has 137 first-year
students, 120 second-year students and 48 in the Graduate Institute program.
“I gravitated towards Oglebay because as an instructor I have an opportunity
to stand before people who really want to learn,” says Williams. “They bring
great information and I learn as much from them as they learn from me, maybe
more. It’s also the afternoons and evenings when we can communicate about
all the stuff we’re doing.
“For us to get people like Ray Ward, Kevin Twohig, Brad Mayne, Bob Hunter,
Larry Perkins, Robyn Williams … the list goes on and on, to have those
people commit for 20 years to teaching … I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear
Brad talk about doing deals, Kevin talk about working with elected
officials, Larry talk about crowd control?”
While Oglebay has grown beyond the wildest dreams of many, Williams is also
an advocate of professional development at the grassroots level and
demonstrated that by being the first to form a chapter meeting in his city.
The genesis for the meeting came as a result of a district meeting that
Williams made to Portland and discovered he was the only manager from Utah
present out of some 20 members from the state. “I went back home and called
some of the people, and the answer I heard time and time again was, ‘I
wanted to go but couldn’t get the funding,’ or ‘I had to choose between that
and the annual conference, or that and the specialty meetings.’ But if we’re
going to get younger members involved and keep them involved, you’ve got to
provide some information to them without their always having to get on a
plane.”
Leading theWay
Whether it has been at the Public
Assembly Facility Management School at Oglebay, serving his district,
forming a chapter, serving on the boards of the IAAM Foundation, CFE or
Board of Education, Williams’ contributions to the industry are in full
display, as is his role as a leader. Putting a handle on what constitutes a
leader is a slightly more difficult task for Williams.
 “I
don’t believe there is one style or formula of leadership,” says Williams.
“I have five children and can tell you that all five kids are different.
They have the same mom and same dad and yet they are extremely different.
Some I could tell you at two years of age, ‘We’ve got a leader,’ and others
I could tell you, ‘We’ve got a follower.’ You can just tell that, so, yes,
it can be learned.
“I don’t think leaders are the smartest or necessarily the brightest. I
don’t think they have all the answers. The people who scare me are the ones
who think they know everything and act like they know everything. I would
much rather follow somebody who says, ‘You know, I’m not too sure about
this. Let’s try it and if we have to make a change, we’ll change.’
“It’s a corny thing, but walk the talk. Be who you are. People want to
follow somebody they can trust and believe. Be consistent and fair, because
people watch you in terms of integrity and honesty. Tell people ‘thank you.’
”
Just like others are telling Williams thank you for his impact in their
lives and careers. People like that Oglebay student and son named Justin
Williams. People like the nine or 10 former associates who have gone on to
manage their own venues. People like the nine individuals who recently
earned their 15-year awards in custodial operations under Williams’
oversight. And people like the 85 full-time employees and 1,100 part-time
employees under Williams’ fold. Not bad for a guy who started out selling
and trying to get people to come to games on a college campus.
Now that’s the ticket.
R.V. Baugus is editor for Facility Manager magazine. |
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