Her Story
About Charlene
I fell into hospitality almost by accident. I'm a native of Savannah, Georgia, and I come from a family that worked in the hospitality industry for eons, but my original goal was to become a dentist. While working as a bartender to pay for school at Armstrong University where I was finishing my dental hygiene degree before heading to the Medical College of Georgia for their dental program, a regular customer who was in town filming Swamp Thing 3 with Heather Locklear struck up a friendship with me. One day he said, 'Charlie, I just can't see you ever getting a mouse done, because you talk all the time. You're such a people person. Have you ever thought about hotels?' It was 1987, and honestly, I wasn't that familiar with hotels beyond housekeeping because I came from a very modest, actually low-income family, so I wasn't big on travel. But he connected me with a friend at South College, and I decided to take a chance. I withdrew from Armstrong University and enrolled in their hotel restaurant management program. My mom was like, 'You're doing what?' But I went for it. I happened to be visiting a girlfriend in Atlanta one weekend, and she mentioned they were opening a new hotel at the Lenox Mall area in Buckhead. I interviewed and was hired into their management trainee program. I relocated to Atlanta planning to transfer to Georgia State, which was known for their hotel management degree program, but I never even got to register because they kept moving me up through every department. I'm what they call grandfathered in - I was way before the degree time, so my experience outweighed everything. I was very young, like 21 or 22, and I started with ISG Intercom in a hotel. Within 2 weeks, they were bought by Westin, and Westin Lenox took me under their wing. Then JW Marriott was about to come in, and there was another hotel company that picked me up in the perimeter area into their management training program. I just stuck with it and gained a passion for it. I love servicing people. It's all about the experience they have at the property from the time they walk through those doors. I did consulting for like 12 years, leasing myself out to properties. Now I'm one of three partners who own a hospitality agency called the Carver Companies. We staff hotels throughout the U.S. and Canada with a task force of seasoned industry professionals who go out on interim assignments, plus we have an hourly staffing arm called Staffing by Carver, and we do permanent search and task-to-perm placements. I'm the Chief Development Officer, so I create all the ideas and platforms. I look at something, see a need, and I don't create a new wheel - I just tweak and perfect what's already happening. I made our task force more efficient so we can send a consultant out within 24 hours instead of the week or two it takes other companies. We're in our 13th year now, and we've grown from a $3,000 check our first week to a multi-million dollar company with a database of over 4,800 consultants. We started with just the three of us being hands-on workers, not just hiring people to work for us, and we scaled very slow, which I think is why we're still here. I hate that I love this industry so much, because it's one you either love or you hate - there's no in-between.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Charlene
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to being willing to take chances and see opportunities as learning experiences rather than failures. When people ask me for advice, I tell them to just go for it and see what happens. If it works out, wonderful. If it doesn't, that was an opportunity to learn and get it right the next time. Nothing is failure - it's just an opportunity. I'm a huge risk taker, and that mindset has served me well. I also believe in keeping the right mindset and keeping your circle very small but very close. I've learned as I've gotten older that friendships and family are everything. I start my day at 4am every morning - I'm a huge walker and just came in from a 6-mile walk - and I'm in bed by 8pm. It's important that you keep the right mindset and stay positive. I've got to be one of the most positive people - I don't like negativity around me because when you think you're going through something, someone else is always worse off. That's why God makes tomorrows. Today you might be going through something, but tomorrow's another day. And I believe in honesty and trust - they go a long way. Being resilient is a huge word I like to use, and it's so important.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was actually from a regular customer at the bar where I worked back in 1987. He told me, 'I just can't see you ever getting a mouse done, because you talk all the time. You're such a people person. Have you ever thought about hotels?' That simple suggestion completely changed the trajectory of my life. I was studying to become a dentist, but he saw something in me that I didn't see in myself - that I was meant to work with people in a face-to-face way. I took a chance on his advice, and it led me to a 36-year career in hospitality that I'm passionate about. Now I share similar advice with young people: just take a chance and go for it. Work for someone first before becoming an entrepreneur so you can learn. Be willing to sacrifice and save your money when times are good, because life ebbs and flows. I tell them I didn't become an entrepreneur until I was 33, and I didn't become a millionaire until I was in my 50s. You're going to have ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and sometimes you're going to lose everything - I lost everything twice and had to rebuild. But each time it gets better and stronger because you learn from those mistakes.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Hold on, honey, hold on, because this could be a ride. First, I would want to know why the hospitality industry - what motivated you? Is this a passion that you have? Because it's all about people and putting yourself down so someone else can stand up. How are you about going into a room and making sure everyone else shines before you? It's not about you. A lot of young people tell me the industry doesn't pay a lot, but I say you create the space that you're in. I've always done well in the industry with money because I always stayed in sales where I could write my own check. They paid a certain salary, but they had bonus plans you could meet. Some people would say it's not attainable, and I'd tell them you will never make it because you're already looking at the negative and not strategically thinking about how you can make this work for you. If you're willing to step into a room and make sure everyone else is served and everyone else is shining, then yeah, welcome to our industry. But if not, you may want to rethink that. And remember, what's the first word you see in hospitality? Hospital. What do you do at a hospital? You take care of people.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge right now is finding the right candidates - quality people who are coming into the industry for the right reasons. People are just hard to find now, and they're coming in for the wrong reason. It's all about the monetary, all about the money. That's the generation - it's all about how can I get my quickest buck. It's so hard finding people who have a love for serving clients and a passion for hospitality. But I also blame my industry because they don't do the training that they once did. That training was once needed, and you had to be certified. They did great training back in the day. I walk into a Marriott property now, and I don't even know that I'm in a Marriott property anymore. Their standards have shifted because it's all about the money. Most hotels now are franchises - they have a handful of corporate hotels, and the corporate hotels still do it right, but the franchises get away with things because of the franchising fees they're paying. The room rates are going up to $400 or $500 a night, but you're getting $100 service from a front desk person. I've watched an industry that I love just go down, especially after COVID. It doesn't represent what it used to represent years ago. The hierarchy was different - it was the thing to do, everyone wanted to work at a hotel. I speak at a lot of colleges and universities for their hospitality programs, and I've seen a huge decline in the students now.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Honesty and trust are the most important values to me - the two are pretty much one and the same. Being resilient is a huge word I like to use, and that is so important. One of the most important things, and if people follow me on LinkedIn they will tell you, I have got to be one of the most positive people. I don't like negativity around me because there's always someone worse off than you. When you think you're going through something, someone else is always worse. That's why God makes tomorrows - today you might be going through something, but tomorrow's another day. It's really important that you keep the right mindset and keep your circle very small but very close. I've learned as I've gotten older that friendships are everything, and family is everything. I also believe in taking care of yourself - I'm a huge walker and I start my day at 4am every morning, and I'm in bed by 8pm. Each day you get up, you breathe, you do your exercise, and you maintain that positive mindset.
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