Forget big companies. Forget 6,000-plus-unit chains. Forget Harvard-MBA-educated CEOS.
It was the legendary entrepreneurs—people like Kemmons Wilson, John Q. Hammons, Harris Rosen and many others—who created this industry by the sweat of their brows and the power of their creativity.
Earlier this week, the hotel business lost one of these great industry builders: Preston Robert Tisch. Together with his brother Larry, Bob Tisch started his hotel empire in 1946 with a small tourist hotel in New Jersey. Over the years, the brothers created a large diversified company, Loews Corp., that encompasses everything from offshore drilling to tobacco. But in his heart Bob Tisch was always a hotelier first and foremost. That legacy lives in the form of his son, Jonathan Tisch, who is chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels and one of the hotel industry's most driven and most creative leaders. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Everyone in the hotel industry will miss Bob Tisch. Our sympathies go to Jon Tisch and the Tisch family.—Ed Watkins, Editor