Colm O'Callaghan - VP, MD, Trump Hotel and Tower, Chicago
I GREW UP helping my family’s business, the Fáilte bar and hotel in Killarney, which my mother still runs. I trained at Shannon, which at the time was run by a Swiss man called Jurgen Bloom, who had come to Ireland in the 1960s. He was driven, and set an extremely high standard.
We were trained on a very disciplined code of hospitality. Show up on time, clean shaven and in uniform. Since leaving Ireland in the mid 1980s, I have carried those philosophies with me everywhere, including Trump International Hotel Tower Chicago.
As vice president and managing director of Trump Chicago, I am responsible for the entirety of the building, which has quickly become a landmark. Chicago is the city of skyscrapers, and this is a great one. It’s the seventh tallest in the world and includes 100,000sq m of retail space, 339 hotel-condominium units and 486 luxury residences – so my responsibilities range greatly from day to day.
I begin my day at 7am. First task: read reports from the previous night and follow up any outstanding issues. Then I do a walk through of the building to ensure all departments are in order. Much of the rest of the morning is often taken up with meetings.
At Trump Chicago, our team is always planning ahead – we have to when our goal is to make this property one of the most sought-after destinations in North America.
I have lunch in our employee cafeteria and try to sit with a different group of employees every day. We have 500 employees, and that number swells in the summer. It is an incredibly diverse, dynamic and creative team and I am inspired by them on a daily basis. We always have three or four Irish students here in the summer, and they love working here.
In the afternoons following lunch, there are often discussions with the board of the hotel or the residences, and reports to be made and sent to headquarters in New York. I have several meetings weekly with different departments within the hotel. In the evening, I conduct one last walk around – to the restaurant, bar, front of house – and make sure that everything is running smoothly.
I live 30 minutes away from downtown Chicago. When I return home in the evening I spend some time with my boys, and catch up on reading.
Donald Trump has very high expectations of me and our team. He doesn’t want to be selling the second best hotel in America, and makes that very clear. He is a remarkable person to be with and when he visits, he always tours the hotel and spots details that can be improved. The last time he was in town, he took me to one of the bathrooms and said that the lighting wasn’t good enough, and he made a good point . . . so now we are having all bathroom lighting upgraded. Things have to be perfect.
Our guests' expectations are very high. They want the lifestyle of the rich and famous when they come here. Our job is not to temper their expectations, but to surpass them, and that's a challenge I'm enthusiastic about meeting. We've survived a challenging time, and now we are thriving. Travel + Leisurenamed us the number one hotel in North America, we've received a distinguished five diamonds from AAA, and our restaurant has received a Michelin star. I truly have a dream job in a dream location.
I am fortunate to travel quite a bit so I always try to get back to Ireland when I can. If I don’t stay with family I will stay at the lovely Park Hotel in Killarney, a great hotel, and from there I can stroll to my parents’ bar. My mum still cooks in the restaurant and I love nothing better than dinner at the Fáilte; she is 74 and still works all day every day. We all grew up helping in the bar and the hotel so I love spending time there, as do my kids who find it a special, special place and love the sense of freedom there. I can still pull a good pint, and make a great martini.