Kevin Woster, Journal staff | Posted: Sunday, May 20, 2007 11:00 pm
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CUSTER STATE PARK -
To a couple of shy housekeepers cleaning a rental cabin at Blue
Bell Resort, Dave Sweet could have been just another inquisitive
tourist interrupting their chores.
They stopped
sweeping and took a hesitant pose as the tall, silver-haired
president of Regency Inns Management of Sioux Falls jumped out of
his sparkling SUV and strolled toward them across the
grass.
"Hi ladies,
beautiful day, isn't it?" Sweet said, towering above the first
woman and her suddenly stationary broom. "You're doing a great job
here. The cabins look great. Can I ask you where you're
from?"
The woman, Sweet
learned, was a native of Jamaica, and her cleaning partner was from
the Philippines. They are part of an eclectic group of 200 foreign
workers employed this season at the four state-owned resorts in
Custer State Park, mostly in jobs that area workers tend to
avoid.
Although they
didn't know it, the two housekeepers had just met their boss.
Occupied as he was with the details of foreign lands, the weather
and those spruced-up rental cabins, Sweet neglected to mention his
position as chief executive officer of the new management company
now in charge of the park resorts.
It was the kind of
omission people who know Sweet have come to expect.
"That story is
typical Dave Sweet. There are no airs about him," state Game, Fish
& Parks Commission member Dick Brown of Sioux Falls said. "He's
just naturally interested in other people. And it's a natural
reaction, as opposed to being contrived.
"You'd never know
from talking to him that he's president of the
company."
Sweet actually is
the head of several companies, beginning with his position as chief
executive officer and president of the Ramkota Companies, Inc., of
Sioux Falls. He is also chairman of the board and CEO of Regency
Inns Management, Inc., and chairman of Regency Hotel Management,
both Ramkota subsidiaries.
In South Dakota,
Ramkota owns hotels in Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Pierre, Watertown
and Aberdeen, with more properties in other states. Regency Inns
and Regency Hotel Management and affiliates have more than 60
properties in 21 states.
Sweet sits at the
top of what many in South Dakota would consider a developing
business empire. Yet many, if not most, employees at company hotels
would have the same reaction to Sweet's friendly approach as the
two housekeepers at Blue Bell.
"In most of our
hotels, a lot of the people don't know who I am," Sweet
said.
Sweet likes that
level of near-anonymity. It's an indication of his unpretentious
style and his role in the Ramkota world. People who know and work
with Sweet manage to call him a "visionary," without rolling their
eyes at that nebulous New-Age cliché. That's because Sweet doesn't
just dream things up. He builds them, too.
After 32 years with
Ramkota, the 58-year-old former Minnesotan is regarded by many -
including state parks division director Doug Hofer of Pierre - as
the most influential hospitality man in the state.
"There's no doubt
he is in South Dakota, and I think his influence is starting to
spread well beyond South Dakota," Hofer said. "Dave is a builder.
He has incredible vision for what can be or what could be when it
comes to the lodging industry."
These days, Sweet's
vision is focused on Custer State Park, its four resorts and a $12
million renovation plan authorized by the GF&P Commission and
the 2007 South Dakota Legislature.
That plan involves
upgrading existing facilities.
Sweet also has a
new dream for Deadwood: a planned motel and convention
center.
Right now, the
Lodge at Deadwood exists today only in a little dirt work and a lot
of Ramkota ambition.
Sweet expects
construction to begin this fall and predicts the 140-room motel,
restaurant and convention center will be open sometime in
2008.
People involved in
Dead-wood's economic development programs have no doubt it will
happen. Based on Sweet's word and Ramkota's reputation, the
Deadwood Chamber and Visitor's Bureau has been recruiting potential
conventions three or four years away. They base their pitch in part
on the assumption that the Lodge at Deadwood will be there when
convention time comes.
Simply because Dave
Sweet says so.
"We can say that
we're going to have a convention center that Dave Sweet's going to
build," Deadwood economic development director George Milos said.
"Many of the people have dealt with Ramkota or Dave in the past and
aren't afraid to put in a bid because they know of their
reputation. It gives us a leg up."
Deadwood has to
"turn away thousands of people a year" because it can't handle
large conventions under one roof, Milos said. The convention center
at The Lodge at Deadwood will meet those conferencing needs with a
capacity topping 1,000 people. But it won't have enough rooms to
provide lodging for all the participants, Milos said.
"We'll have to
house them throughout town. So, it's going to benefit everybody,"
he said. "I think that's what Dave wants, to benefit the community
and not hurt other businesses in any way. You will not hear a bad
word about Dave Sweet throughout the business community in this
town."
Others say you're
unlikely to hear one anywhere in the South Dakota hospitality
business. Hofer calls Sweet "the easiest-going concessionaire I've
ever worked with." And Susan Johnson, former South Dakota tourism
secretary and current head of Black Hills Central Reservations
center, said Sweet's success and wealth haven't changed the
unassuming guy she met almost 25 years ago.
"He has gray hair
and wears glasses now, but he's the same guy," Johnson said. "He
just knows we're too small in South Dakota not to get along. We
don't have enough money. We don't have enough time for pettiness.
He's a big thinker who makes things happen and brings other people
along with him."
Sweet avoids
responding to such compliments, saying simply that he likes people.
He also understands that conflict costs money and good relations
mean good business. When asked about his success, Sweet points to a
well-structured management team at Ramkota and its subsidiaries
that Hofer calls "one of the best anywhere."
And during his
impromptu tour of the rental cabins at Blue Bell Resort, Sweet
encourages a reporter to focus less on him and more on the new
furniture, the remodeled bathrooms and the future of the
resorts.
"I really don't
know why I'm a story," he said.
Sweet is also
careful to praise his predecessor at the park resorts, Custer area
businessman Phil Lampert.
Lampert was a
concession operator at Blue Bell for 28 years who consolidated all
four resorts under one state lease and oversaw an initial
renovation plan that revitalized the faltering facilities in ways
that Sweet never fails to praise.
"Phil did such a
good job for so many years here in the park. He was a great
concessionaire," Sweet says. "He left us with wonderful facilities.
Now our job is to make them even better."
Those words are
golden to Lampert, who struggled through months of increasingly
bitter negotiations with Hofer and the GF&P Commission to renew
his expiring lease at the resorts. Lampert argued that the
increased franchise fees and more demanding investments in personal
property required by the GF&P Commission were unworkable.
Ultimately, the negotiations failed.
The commission then
opened the concession lease to bids, and Lampert decided not to
make an offer.
Only then, did
Sweet get involved.
"He told me up
front that if I was interested in taking another run at the park,
he wouldn't," Lampert said. "But he said if I wasn't interested,
they wanted to bid on it."
That wasn't the
first time Sweet had deferred to Lampert on resort management in
the park. Back when Lampert had just the Blue Bell concession,
Sweet asked for help in getting the State Game Lodge
lease.
"I told him I
couldn't help him, because that's what I wanted to do," Lampert
said. "Dave's had a desire to get his foot in the door for a long,
long time. But because of our friendship, he never attempted to do
anything that would interfere with my relationship with the
park."
Sweet's
light-handed approach to the bid process and respectful dealings
with Lampert softened hard feelings toward GF&P, and
potentially toward Regency, among Lampert's supporters. Rather than
ignore or oppose Sweet, Lampert encouraged his interest in managing
the resorts.
When Regency got
the lease, Sweet invited Lampert to join Regency as an equity
partner in exchange for personal property, such as furnishings and
vehicles that were left at the resorts. Lampert did that, and also
agreed to consult with Sweet on resort issues in the park and
possibly in other states.
Lampert also
operates the gift shop in the Rapid City Ramkota. He is opening an
outlet for his Custer gift store and art gallery, "A Walk in the
Woods," in a Ramkota resort at Lake Okoboji in Iowa. He also
expects to have one in the new Lodge at Deadwood.
Instead of making
an enemy in coming to Custer State Park, Sweet figured out how to
keep a friend and develop a partner.
"Dave's a class
act," Lampert said. "You won't find any better."
Sweet began his act
in Kansas City, where he was born. But his dad was employed by the
U.S. Secret Service and the family moved around. Sweet joined the
hospitality business as a college student in Minnesota, working at
the school cafeteria.
He also worked in
bars and restaurants while completing a double major in business
administration and restaurant management.
His internship at
an upscale restaurant led to other hospitality connections and
eventually a job in Minneapolis managing motels.
"But I was on the
road all the time in that job. I was getting married and didn't
want to travel so much," Sweet said. "That's when I took the
Ramkota job."
The new job and the
new state turned out to be everything Sweet and his wife, Marty,
were looking for. They settled in Sioux Falls, raised two children
- Kelly, 26, and Jon, 24 - and Sweet helped drive Ramkota to the
top of the state's hospitality business, and beyond.
But he didn't stop
traveling.
Sweet's work and
involvement in a variety of boards put the squeeze on his favorite
outdoor hobbies - fishing, hunting, horseback riding and downhill
skiing.
Billie Jo Waara,
director of the South Dakota Office of Tourism in Pierre, said
Sweet uses his wide travels to better understand the hospitality
business and bring those ideas to his work on the Governor's
Tourism Advisory Board.
Sweet has been
pushing, for example, for the state to replace the interstate
welcome signs that visitors see as they come into South Dakota,
Waara said.
So far, state
Department of Transportation funding issues have stymied the
project. But Sweet keeps at it, seeking lower bids, cheaper
options, better plans and flooding the advisory board with photos
and ideas.
"He'll take
pictures of other states' welcome signs or stand by the signs and
see how visitors are viewing them," Waara said.
"He stops and walks
around and looks at the signs and the landscaping, and talks to
people there about them. He does things you don't expect a CEO to
do."
That includes
interrupting a media tour to offer a hand and a kind word to a
couple of new employees who have no idea who he is.
Which is just how
Dave Sweet seems to like it.
Contact Kevin
Woster at 394-8413 or
kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com
