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Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1702
PARK CITY BUSINESS EXECUTIVE OFFERS ADVICE AND OBSERVATIONS FOR BUSINESS ABOUT WINTER GAMES
Bill Malone, the executive director of the Park City, Utah, Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau has offered a lot of advice to businesses in Vancouver and Whistler to help them take advantage of the 2010 Winter Games.
Malone is in British Columbia on a province-wide speaking tour arranged by 2010 Legacies Now and sponsored by RBC Financial Group, which also sponsors the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC). Malone's Chamber has about 850 business members.
Malone says "there's no handbook on how to do an Olympics," and each one is unique, but there are a lot of common features that range from the kinds of businesses that do well -- and don't -- during a Winter Games, to the characteristics of the major groups of people who come to a host city.
Park City, population 9,000 with a total of about 25,000 in the neighbouring region and three ski resorts, hosted 23 of the medal events during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, so some of his comments apply specifically to a community that's similar to Whistler, while the rest of his comments apply to any venue community, such as Vancouver, Whistler, West Vancouver and Richmond.
Malone said Park City discovered that it needed to develop "a seamless visitor information service." He added, "We had to partner with everybody, government, the organizers, businesses, to ensure that happened."
Malone says Winter Olympic "customers" were different from the community's regular winter clientele. "They were more akin to Superbowl or US Open customers in terms of their focus. They are extremely focused towards the event. They want to go to the events, and be a part of that celebration. The bulk of their spending while they were there is on lodging, food and souvenirs." Malone said the Chamber predicted the city's main streets would get about 15,000 additional visitors during the Games, but the number of those who showed up was 27,000. "We conducted surveys on those guests, asking them where they came from, opinions on their experience, and whether they would return."
He says that a significant number of the guests were customers of Olympic sponsors or guests of related corporations or organizations that use the Games "as a reward or entertainment device." But, he says, the concept wasn't limited to organizations close to the Games. "There were many companies from around the country, and the world -- as well as local companies -- that used the Games as their opportunity to reward loyal customers and to entice new business." In addition, he said, a lot of companies came to Park City to set up hospitality areas for their customers and clients, or prospects, and ensured there were lots of photo opportunities for those attending.
Research from other Olympic Games showed the Park City Chamber that regular customers of the town, he said, were likely to become "quite hesitant" to pursue their usual activities and business as the Games drew near, "We had to work to ensure they were not forgotten... and to talk about some of the perceptions they had about crowds, pricing, construction and skiing access. For instance, the actual skiing terrain that was locked up during that winter with the Games was only 2% of what was available. We had a hard time sending the message out that 98% of the skiing terrain was still available, and that people could still come to the city and go skiing as usual during the Olympics."
He also said property owners would feel they had gold mines, "but there really is a limited time block of opportunity to lease out space."
A lesson the Chamber, and Park City, learned was that they were wrong to believe that corporate sponsors would pick up a lot of the costs of various ideas to help host the Games. "There were companies that had spent a lot of dollars to acquire those Olympic rings [through sponsorship], but their stock prices, because of economic conditions, prevented them from spending a lot of money activating those rings." He noted that the 2002 Games took place during a snap recession that occurred following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as a mitigating factor.
Malone says his organization also learned that "tickets for the Games would be everywhere. We wanted to work, in terms of helping [Games organizers] to sell tickets, but the reality is that tickets were available and we could tell people to come to the Games without buying tickets in advance, and they'll still have a good time."
He said the Chamber did 15 months of monthly membership meetings in advance of the Games to talk about issues such as transportation, athletes, Olympic-pin trading, the Cultural Olympiad opportunities and business opportunities. A 60-page "Park City Survival Guide" was also produced for the business community for use as the Games neared and ran. "It talked about everything from the Games, to tickets, to services such as trash pick-up and where Fedex boxes were delivered, celebrations, zones and times, transportation issues."
Malone said the Chamber also had to work quite hard to lower the expectations of business people who felt there were "going to be some automatic successes to their business with the Olympics." Malone says it was Salt Lake's experience that the number of spectators that arrive for the Games doesn't start off strong and stay steady until the end, it starts slow and builds towards the end of the two weeks, whether it is the Olympics or the Paralympics.
He also said that hosting World Cup competitions in the period leading up to the Games was a "a lot of fun" but, more importantly, it gave all kinds of businesses a chance to practice for what the time of the Games would be like. "You get to see the same athletes as you see during the Olympics, and you work with [the representatives of their] countries and their teams in the couple of years leading up to the Games."
Malone says that countdown opportunities -- such as 1,000 days out, one-year-out, or 100-days-out -- were used by a wide range of businesses, and there was a publicly available countdown clock that helped people be aware of the time remaining. "But," he added, "When it got to be the last 100 days, I used to curse that clock when I got to work because of all the pressure it put on us."
Malone says it was also useful to adjust marketing and labour budgets in the years leading up to the Games to set aside funds for celebrations or related activities, as well as to do post-Games marketing. "This isn't just for the public sector, but for the private sector as well. Make sure those dollars are there to carry you through, depending on the type of business you're in, during that time frame."
The Park City Chamber also worked to talk with its corporate members about its expectations for lodging, retail, dining, skiing and unsold real estate. "There are certain walls, in certain industries, that are raised during the time leading up to and during the Olympics. The real estate industry was one of these. Real estate skyrocketed after the Games, but in the period of time leading up to the Games and during them, is not the time to be showing properties, because there's a lot of customer trepidation whether the pricing was realistic. Everyone found out that the prices were realistic, but it took a bit of time for that confidence to kick in."
Among the types of businesses that boomed during the lead-up and after the Olympics, he said, were scaffolding companies. The 2002 Olympics needed lots of scaffolding to build additional seating and bleachers, and in one case, it was the largest such bleacher ever built to that time. The Games had about half a million visitors, accounting for about US$35 million in ticket sales for events. As a result, he said, "These scaffolding structures were between 11 and 12 storeys tall." But, he noted, there was no one firm that was big enough to do the job; instead, three firms had to work togeter to do the jobs required.
Another type of business that swelled involved firms that put up lighting for a lot of the buildings in Park City. "It was something that was suggested to us by NBC," the American television network that was a Games broadcaster, and will be in 2010.
There were also some oddball hits: in the cold mountainous air of the resort city during the Games, a company that offered "warming pits" -- a modern, attractive design that allowed people to have a safe fire on the street to warm themselves -- proved to be extremely popular with spectators, and, Malone said, "they were all over town." So, too, he said were big-screen TVs in various public locations, which were first used during the Sydney, Australia, Summer Games two years earlier. Also popular were "warming rooms" offered by a local beer company in various locations, and "bubble hockey" games that were set up in public areas. Monster.com, the Internet job-finding website firm, set up a snow maze. "We learned our lesson: guests need to go inside to warm up. We thought we could do a lot of functions outdoors, like serving food, but they weren't popular. People were outside for long periods of time, and they wanted to come inside to eat."
Even Park City itself found that it was lucrative to help out various companies. For instance, he said, the public library was rented to Team Norway. "It was a nice, healthy cheque that came from the country of Norway to our city government." Other oddities: some hotel lobbies were used by TV broadcasters to host national news casts or personality shows for various broadcasters, including NBC.
Another aspect of the Games themselves is that it's widely understood by the population that it's a big party. "There's a lot of celebratory activity that takes place, some of it spontaneous, some of it corporate." He noted later, as well, "There's all kinds of entertainment available." Nightlife, he said, was successful. "A lot of the people who come to the Games are single or couples, and they want to go out and celebrate, to party, to go to bars or lounges. That was really popular with the build-up crew [before the Games] and, surprisingly, with law enforcement personnel as well."
And, he also pointed out, that pin trading "was huge" in Salt Lake City. "It became kind of the currency of the Games." One of the international Olympic sponsors, Coca-Cola, was heavily involved in pin trading. But, he said, Coca-Cola also set up a radio station, where broadcasters from around the world who were attending the Games, were invited to televise themselves in their native languages.
Organizers also set up what Malone called "capture lots" -- centralized areas where people could congregate to catch various types of public transportation. VANOC is in the process now of completing a study into various types of transportation and parking areas around various venues. A "Know Before You Go" centre was also set up to help people learn about the best way to get to and from an event in advance to reduce traffic congestion.
Malone advised businesses to analyze their physical location and their proximity to venues or routes leading between venues, to decide whether the business' products or services is a match to what suppliers or sponsors to the Games need, as well as what the organizing committee needs. "I also suggest looking at scheduled events and decide how you need to adjust your operations. Learn about transportation, road closures, security issues, Guage the amount of excitment among your staff about the Games, and budget stocks and schedule staff accordingly. We found it was hard, particularly for hospitality businesses, to keep staff. There are lots of temptations out there for short-term opportunities, sometimes at higher pay, by sponsors or other companies coming into town and setting up hospitality areas. Work to develop bonus systems for your staff."
Malone said that retail spending the Park City was up 19% during the quarter in which the 2002 Games were held compared with the same quarter the previous year. "There was a lot sold in the area of souvenirs and Olympics merchandise -- there's a wide variety of products available with Olympic branding, with a lot of price ranges -- so it was important for retail stores in the City to find products that would resonate with their customers." Dining revenues were up 15%. "A lot of the dining opportunities came to the higher-end restaurants because of sponsors and corporations would reserve those types of restaurants for their VIPs or reserved them for private parties or functions." However, he said, the rest of the guests, and the usual public, preferred moderately priced food and restaurants.
Malone said that while spending overall was up, the increases happened in specific types of businesses, and at specific times. "It was based on the people who were in town. A lot of the build-up crews liked moderately priced food and pubs. Those types of things did really well. The higher-end restaurants, in the time preceding the Games, did not do nearly as well. Catering did extremely well; so did dry cleaners. Some of these people are there for extended periods of time and they need those support services. Decorations companies, equipment rentals, rental furniture. Local entertainers and artists capitalized off the event as well, such as performing on stage, as well as providing entertainment at private corporate functions. Private transit companies, such as taxi firms, did well, particuarly because people were being urged to take transportation and not deal with parking. Doctors and nurses also found opportunities, working with teams." A US$3 million contract was reached between the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee and porta-john businesses to provide services, but they had to work with each other to do that, because no one firm was large enough to handle the demands.
Service companies -- florists, banks, realtors, insurance companies and the like -- needed to adjust operations. "They needed to keep in mind event days and any staff holidays that fall within the period of the Games." Florists, he said, did "a phenomenal business", but not just for ceremonies, but to corporate sponsors and companies with hospitality suites.
In the long-term after the Games, visitor levels to Park City in the past three years has grown 47%, from 1.1 million skier days, to 1.7 million, while visitor nights has increased 2.7 million to 3.5 million. Restaurants and dining revenues have grown 34% "To me," Malone said, "these are clear indications of the popularity of our destinations have been elevated since the Games. The Olympics were, in some respects, a giant Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. We're seeing great growth from international business. The Olympics leaves behind a cachet. There was a lot of confidence that was built into the community that came from hosting those Games. Community confidence was a tremendous legacy for us, because if you can do the Games, you can do almost anything."
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 31, 2006
Morgan:News:2010 |Business, VANOC, IOC| #1701
BELL CHOOSES VANOC DIRECTOR CROOKS TO HEAD UP NEW CORPORATE MENTORING PROGRAM
Bell Canada, the largest sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics, has chosen a member of the organizing committee's Board of Directors to be part of a group of Canadian Olympic athletes to be mentored by Bell executives.
Mary O'Hara, Bell's vice-president of People Development, said today that Charmaine Crooks, a five-time Olympian who lives in North Vancouver, will be Program Mentor of the new Bell Champions project, and Crooks confirmed that she is joining Bell. Under the program, Bell is providing Crooks and eight other Olympians participation in a mentoring program, which aims to help athletes move from careers in sport to careers in business. The athletes are matched with executive mentors with corresponding strengths.
This program, according to the company, "offers diverse opportunities for mentoring and knowledge-sharing, ranging from general business acumen and leadership to technology and telecommunications." The company also thinks that its executives, as mentors, "will also benefit from their exposure to athletes accustomed to winning in high performance and highly competitive environments." The athletes will speak to Bell staff in what the company calls "motivational sessions" and externally on behalf of Bell to community groups, sharing their experiences.
"Since joining the company," says Crooks in a prepared statement, "I have been inspired by the drive and commitment of the Bell employees with whom I've had the opportunity to work closely. These attributes are strongly aligned with the values of the Olympic Movement. I believe that this alliance between the Bell Champions and Bell employees will go a long way to demonstrate that the characteristics required to excel in sports are the same as the ones required to excel in business. I also believe that athletes across Canada will benefit greatly from the professional insight that Bell's Athlete and Executive Mentor Program will provide."
Other winter athletes in the nine-member group to be mentored are speedskaters Clara Hughes of Glenn Sutton, Quebec and Amanda Overland of Montreal, and freestyle skier Steve Omischl of Kelowna, BC. There are also five Olympians from summer Games: Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Quebec and wheelchair athlete Chantal Petitclerc, both of Montreal; figure skater Joannie Rochette of Ile Dupas, Quebec; Kyle Shewfelt, an artistic gymnast of Calgary, Alberta; and Burlington, Ontario's, Adam van Koeverden, a canoeist and kayaker.
Bell, describing the backgrounds of each athlete, noted Crooks' service on two of the International Olympic Committee's Commissions, one for the Press and one for Athletes as a representative of the World Olympians Association, but did not mention her connection to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games,
It said. however, that its program was connected with the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee, not with VANOC. Crooks is one of the COC's seven representatives on the 20-member VANOC Board.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 31, 2006
Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #1702
PARK CITY BUSINESS EXECUTIVE OFFERS ADVICE AND OBSERVATIONS FOR BUSINESS ABOUT WINTER GAMES
Bill Malone, the executive director of the Park City, Utah, Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau has offered a lot of advice to businesses in Vancouver and Whistler to help them take advantage of the 2010 Winter Games.
Malone is in British Columbia on a province-wide speaking tour arranged by 2010 Legacies Now and sponsored by RBC Financial Group, which also sponsors the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games (VANOC). Malone's Chamber has about 850 business members.
Malone says "there's no handbook on how to do an Olympics," and each one is unique, but there are a lot of common features that range from the kinds of businesses that do well -- and don't -- during a Winter Games, to the characteristics of the major groups of people who come to a host city.
Park City, population 9,000 with a total of about 25,000 in the neighbouring region and three ski resorts, hosted 23 of the medal events during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, so some of his comments apply specifically to a community that's similar to Whistler, while the rest of his comments apply to any venue community, such as Vancouver, Whistler, West Vancouver and Richmond.
Malone said Park City discovered that it needed to develop "a seamless visitor information service." He added, "We had to partner with everybody, government, the organizers, businesses, to ensure that happened."
Malone says Winter Olympic "customers" were different from the community's regular winter clientele. "They were more akin to Superbowl or US Open customers in terms of their focus. They are extremely focused towards the event. They want to go to the events, and be a part of that celebration. The bulk of their spending while they were there is on lodging, food and souvenirs." Malone said the Chamber predicted the city's main streets would get about 15,000 additional visitors during the Games, but the number of those who showed up was 27,000. "We conducted surveys on those guests, asking them where they came from, opinions on their experience, and whether they would return."
He says that a significant number of the guests were customers of Olympic sponsors or guests of related corporations or organizations that use the Games "as a reward or entertainment device." But, he says, the concept wasn't limited to organizations close to the Games. "There were many companies from around the country, and the world -- as well as local companies -- that used the Games as their opportunity to reward loyal customers and to entice new business." In addition, he said, a lot of companies came to Park City to set up hospitality areas for their customers and clients, or prospects, and ensured there were lots of photo opportunities for those attending.
Research from other Olympic Games showed the Park City Chamber that regular customers of the town, he said, were likely to become "quite hesitant" to pursue their usual activities and business as the Games drew near, "We had to work to ensure they were not forgotten... and to talk about some of the perceptions they had about crowds, pricing, construction and skiing access. For instance, the actual skiing terrain that was locked up during that winter with the Games was only 2% of what was available. We had a hard time sending the message out that 98% of the skiing terrain was still available, and that people could still come to the city and go skiing as usual during the Olympics."
He also said property owners would feel they had gold mines, "but there really is a limited time block of opportunity to lease out space."
A lesson the Chamber, and Park City, learned was that they were wrong to believe that corporate sponsors would pick up a lot of the costs of various ideas to help host the Games. "There were companies that had spent a lot of dollars to acquire those Olympic rings [through sponsorship], but their stock prices, because of economic conditions, prevented them from spending a lot of money activating those rings." He noted that the 2002 Games took place during a snap recession that occurred following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington as a mitigating factor.
Malone says his organization also learned that "tickets for the Games would be everywhere. We wanted to work, in terms of helping [Games organizers] to sell tickets, but the reality is that tickets were available and we could tell people to come to the Games without buying tickets in advance, and they'll still have a good time."
He said the Chamber did 15 months of monthly membership meetings in advance of the Games to talk about issues such as transportation, athletes, Olympic-pin trading, the Cultural Olympiad opportunities and business opportunities. A 60-page "Park City Survival Guide" was also produced for the business community for use as the Games neared and ran. "It talked about everything from the Games, to tickets, to services such as trash pick-up and where Fedex boxes were delivered, celebrations, zones and times, transportation issues."
Malone said the Chamber also had to work quite hard to lower the expectations of business people who felt there were "going to be some automatic successes to their business with the Olympics." Malone says it was Salt Lake's experience that the number of spectators that arrive for the Games doesn't start off strong and stay steady until the end, it starts slow and builds towards the end of the two weeks, whether it is the Olympics or the Paralympics.
He also said that hosting World Cup competitions in the period leading up to the Games was a "a lot of fun" but, more importantly, it gave all kinds of businesses a chance to practice for what the time of the Games would be like. "You get to see the same athletes as you see during the Olympics, and you work with [the representatives of their] countries and their teams in the couple of years leading up to the Games."
Malone says that countdown opportunities -- such as 1,000 days out, one-year-out, or 100-days-out -- were used by a wide range of businesses, and there was a publicly available countdown clock that helped people be aware of the time remaining. "But," he added, "When it got to be the last 100 days, I used to curse that clock when I got to work because of all the pressure it put on us."
Malone says it was also useful to adjust marketing and labour budgets in the years leading up to the Games to set aside funds for celebrations or related activities, as well as to do post-Games marketing. "This isn't just for the public sector, but for the private sector as well. Make sure those dollars are there to carry you through, depending on the type of business you're in, during that time frame."
The Park City Chamber also worked to talk with its corporate members about its expectations for lodging, retail, dining, skiing and unsold real estate. "There are certain walls, in certain industries, that are raised during the time leading up to and during the Olympics. The real estate industry was one of these. Real estate skyrocketed after the Games, but in the period of time leading up to the Games and during them, is not the time to be showing properties, because there's a lot of customer trepidation whether the pricing was realistic. Everyone found out that the prices were realistic, but it took a bit of time for that confidence to kick in."
Among the types of businesses that boomed during the lead-up and after the Olympics, he said, were scaffolding companies. The 2002 Olympics needed lots of scaffolding to build additional seating and bleachers, and in one case, it was the largest such bleacher ever built to that time. The Games had about half a million visitors, accounting for about US$35 million in ticket sales for events. As a result, he said, "These scaffolding structures were between 11 and 12 storeys tall." But, he noted, there was no one firm that was big enough to do the job; instead, three firms had to work togeter to do the jobs required.
Another type of business that swelled involved firms that put up lighting for a lot of the buildings in Park City. "It was something that was suggested to us by NBC," the American television network that was a Games broadcaster, and will be in 2010.
There were also some oddball hits: in the cold mountainous air of the resort city during the Games, a company that offered "warming pits" -- a modern, attractive design that allowed people to have a safe fire on the street to warm themselves -- proved to be extremely popular with spectators, and, Malone said, "they were all over town." So, too, he said were big-screen TVs in various public locations, which were first used during the Sydney, Australia, Summer Games two years earlier. Also popular were "warming rooms" offered by a local beer company in various locations, and "bubble hockey" games that were set up in public areas. Monster.com, the Internet job-finding website firm, set up a snow maze. "We learned our lesson: guests need to go inside to warm up. We thought we could do a lot of functions outdoors, like serving food, but they weren't popular. People were outside for long periods of time, and they wanted to come inside to eat."
Even Park City itself found that it was lucrative to help out various companies. For instance, he said, the public library was rented to Team Norway. "It was a nice, healthy cheque that came from the country of Norway to our city government." Other oddities: some hotel lobbies were used by TV broadcasters to host national news casts or personality shows for various broadcasters, including NBC.
Another aspect of the Games themselves is that it's widely understood by the population that it's a big party. "There's a lot of celebratory activity that takes place, some of it spontaneous, some of it corporate." He noted later, as well, "There's all kinds of entertainment available." Nightlife, he said, was successful. "A lot of the people who come to the Games are single or couples, and they want to go out and celebrate, to party, to go to bars or lounges. That was really popular with the build-up crew [before the Games] and, surprisingly, with law enforcement personnel as well."
And, he also pointed out, that pin trading "was huge" in Salt Lake City. "It became kind of the currency of the Games." One of the international Olympic sponsors, Coca-Cola, was heavily involved in pin trading. But, he said, Coca-Cola also set up a radio station, where broadcasters from around the world who were attending the Games, were invited to televise themselves in their native languages.
Organizers also set up what Malone called "capture lots" -- centralized areas where people could congregate to catch various types of public transportation. VANOC is in the process now of completing a study into various types of transportation and parking areas around various venues. A "Know Before You Go" centre was also set up to help people learn about the best way to get to and from an event in advance to reduce traffic congestion.
Malone advised businesses to analyze their physical location and their proximity to venues or routes leading between venues, to decide whether the business' products or services is a match to what suppliers or sponsors to the Games need, as well as what the organizing committee needs. "I also suggest looking at scheduled events and decide how you need to adjust your operations. Learn about transportation, road closures, security issues, Guage the amount of excitment among your staff about the Games, and budget stocks and schedule staff accordingly. We found it was hard, particularly for hospitality businesses, to keep staff. There are lots of temptations out there for short-term opportunities, sometimes at higher pay, by sponsors or other companies coming into town and setting up hospitality areas. Work to develop bonus systems for your staff."
Malone said that retail spending the Park City was up 19% during the quarter in which the 2002 Games were held compared with the same quarter the previous year. "There was a lot sold in the area of souvenirs and Olympics merchandise -- there's a wide variety of products available with Olympic branding, with a lot of price ranges -- so it was important for retail stores in the City to find products that would resonate with their customers." Dining revenues were up 15%. "A lot of the dining opportunities came to the higher-end restaurants because of sponsors and corporations would reserve those types of restaurants for their VIPs or reserved them for private parties or functions." However, he said, the rest of the guests, and the usual public, preferred moderately priced food and restaurants.
Malone said that while spending overall was up, the increases happened in specific types of businesses, and at specific times. "It was based on the people who were in town. A lot of the build-up crews liked moderately priced food and pubs. Those types of things did really well. The higher-end restaurants, in the time preceding the Games, did not do nearly as well. Catering did extremely well; so did dry cleaners. Some of these people are there for extended periods of time and they need those support services. Decorations companies, equipment rentals, rental furniture. Local entertainers and artists capitalized off the event as well, such as performing on stage, as well as providing entertainment at private corporate functions. Private transit companies, such as taxi firms, did well, particuarly because people were being urged to take transportation and not deal with parking. Doctors and nurses also found opportunities, working with teams." A US$3 million contract was reached between the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee and porta-john businesses to provide services, but they had to work with each other to do that, because no one firm was large enough to handle the demands.
Service companies -- florists, banks, realtors, insurance companies and the like -- needed to adjust operations. "They needed to keep in mind event days and any staff holidays that fall within the period of the Games." Florists, he said, did "a phenomenal business", but not just for ceremonies, but to corporate sponsors and companies with hospitality suites.
In the long-term after the Games, visitor levels to Park City in the past three years has grown 47%, from 1.1 million skier days, to 1.7 million, while visitor nights has increased 2.7 million to 3.5 million. Restaurants and dining revenues have grown 34% "To me," Malone said, "these are clear indications of the popularity of our destinations have been elevated since the Games. The Olympics were, in some respects, a giant Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. We're seeing great growth from international business. The Olympics leaves behind a cachet. There was a lot of confidence that was built into the community that came from hosting those Games. Community confidence was a tremendous legacy for us, because if you can do the Games, you can do almost anything."
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 31, 2006
Morgan:News:2010 |Business, VANOC, IOC| #1701
BELL CHOOSES VANOC DIRECTOR CROOKS TO HEAD UP NEW CORPORATE MENTORING PROGRAM
Bell Canada, the largest sponsor of the 2010 Winter Olympics, has chosen a member of the organizing committee's Board of Directors to be part of a group of Canadian Olympic athletes to be mentored by Bell executives.
Mary O'Hara, Bell's vice-president of People Development, said today that Charmaine Crooks, a five-time Olympian who lives in North Vancouver, will be Program Mentor of the new Bell Champions project, and Crooks confirmed that she is joining Bell. Under the program, Bell is providing Crooks and eight other Olympians participation in a mentoring program, which aims to help athletes move from careers in sport to careers in business. The athletes are matched with executive mentors with corresponding strengths.
This program, according to the company, "offers diverse opportunities for mentoring and knowledge-sharing, ranging from general business acumen and leadership to technology and telecommunications." The company also thinks that its executives, as mentors, "will also benefit from their exposure to athletes accustomed to winning in high performance and highly competitive environments." The athletes will speak to Bell staff in what the company calls "motivational sessions" and externally on behalf of Bell to community groups, sharing their experiences.
"Since joining the company," says Crooks in a prepared statement, "I have been inspired by the drive and commitment of the Bell employees with whom I've had the opportunity to work closely. These attributes are strongly aligned with the values of the Olympic Movement. I believe that this alliance between the Bell Champions and Bell employees will go a long way to demonstrate that the characteristics required to excel in sports are the same as the ones required to excel in business. I also believe that athletes across Canada will benefit greatly from the professional insight that Bell's Athlete and Executive Mentor Program will provide."
Other winter athletes in the nine-member group to be mentored are speedskaters Clara Hughes of Glenn Sutton, Quebec and Amanda Overland of Montreal, and freestyle skier Steve Omischl of Kelowna, BC. There are also five Olympians from summer Games: Alexandre Despatie of Laval, Quebec and wheelchair athlete Chantal Petitclerc, both of Montreal; figure skater Joannie Rochette of Ile Dupas, Quebec; Kyle Shewfelt, an artistic gymnast of Calgary, Alberta; and Burlington, Ontario's, Adam van Koeverden, a canoeist and kayaker.
Bell, describing the backgrounds of each athlete, noted Crooks' service on two of the International Olympic Committee's Commissions, one for the Press and one for Athletes as a representative of the World Olympians Association, but did not mention her connection to the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games,
It said. however, that its program was connected with the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee, not with VANOC. Crooks is one of the COC's seven representatives on the 20-member VANOC Board.
Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on May 31, 2006
