Q&A: Cindy Delaney, making travel plans

Vermont Business Magazine, Mar 01, 2005 by Smith, Robert

Cindy Delaney is thw owner of Delaney Meeting and Event Management, a meeting planning firm based in Winooski.

Prior to starting her business in April 1997, she was the Director of Catering for the Sheraton Hotel & Conference Center and Ramada Inn in Burlington.

She was also the senior sales manager for the Sheraton Burlington, conference sales director for Smugglers' Notch Resort, and has over 16 years of experience in the hotel/resort industry in Vermont and New York. She is an adjunct professor in the Tourism and Hospitality Department at Champlain College, is a former board member of the New England Chapter of the Professional Convention Management Association, and serves on the boards of RunVermont, and the Vermont Convention Bureau. She is a 1985 graduate of Skidmore College.

Delaney lives in Fairfax with her husband Peter, who is vice president of operations at Smugglers' Notch. She skis, road bikes, runs, hikes and enjoys fly fishing, having recently caught her first bonefish on a fly rod while on vacation in Belize.

Robert Smith interviewed Delaney in her offices at the Champlain Mill in Winooski, overlooking the Winooski River.

VBM: I'd like to start with your background.

Delaney: I was raised in New Jersey. I went to Skidmore College as a business major. I knew I wanted to get into the hospitality industry, and Skidmore was a liberal arts school, so they didn't have specialties. So I spent a summer at Cornell, and tried to do internships with hotels and resorts.

When I got out of college, a lot of my friends were able to find traditional jobs in banks and ad agencies, but I kind of had to pound the pavement. I worked for a restaurant at home for a while, doing marketing and advertising and banquet sales. Then I went to New York City and just started walking around. I found a job with Omni Hotels, in their banquet sales department. It's one of the larger hotels in downtown New York. New York was a great experience, but I couldn't enjoy the lifestyle. 1 didn't make enough money to really live there and do the things that you like to do when you're in the city. So I lasted about six months. I'd spent my junior year at UVM, skiing and going to school, so I decided that I would try to find a job in Vermont. I interviewed with four resorts and got two offers. 1 decided to work at Smugglers Notch Resort because it was a four season resort, because there was skiing, and because they seemed to offer the best experience. I moved to Vermont in the summer of 1986, and was with Smugglers for seven years, doing sales and conference coordinating, during which time they really grew into a family resort. That really wasn't my market. I was selling groups and when you've got lots of kids running around, it's not conducive to conferences necessarily.

So, after about seven years there I decided it was time for a change, if I wanted to stay in the conference business. There was an opening at the Sheraton, which I interviewed for...

VBM: In Burlington?

Delaney: Yes. I started off as the senior sales manager. I oversaw a small staff and had accounts of my own and clients I had to work with. The owners of the Sheraton, in the meantime, bought the Ramada, which was sort of across the street on Williston Road towards the airport, and we were selling both properties. So if a group didn't quite fit budget-wise or size-wise at the Sheraton, we could sell the Ramada and accommodate them that way. Over that time period I also took a change in jobs within the company to director of catering. In this situation the director of catering coordinates all the large conventions and major social events like big fundraisers and big trade shows. I also had a sales staff that reported to me and a fairly significant budget to manage. It was a great job. After about three years of that, there was an opportunity to go out on my own. There wasn't anyone in town really that had a meeting planning business. I'd been working with meeting planners now for 11 years, and realized that maybe it was time for someone to take a chance. I'd seized some opportunities, made some relationships, but didn't have any clients. I didn't feel that was the right thing to do until I left the hotel. I left in April 1997, and had a part time job selling sun rooms. I called it my bridge job, until I could get clients and get some income coming in. I worked for Otter Creek Awnings for a friend of mine who ran the operation here in Vermont. I did that for about four months until I had clients and was off and running.

VBM: So you've been in business for yourself about eight years. How has the business grown in that time?

Delaney: I now have three full-time staff, plus myself, plus an intern, and various subcontractors when we need them. Occasionally we need a hand here and there, so we have a handful of people we can call on for that. We've grown probably 10 to 20 percent a year since we started. Last year we had our best year ever. We're starting to see a little leveling off. We probably won't grow at that pace this year, for a couple of reasons. There are a few events that happen every other year, and they won't happen this year. We work with groups that may also realize that they need to have someone on staff, instead of working with us. Though in a lot of cases we're a perfect outsourcing situation because we cost less and there's no overhead. But, like with the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, we worked with them on the Vermont Industry Expo, and they realized they needed someone inhouse to do all of their events, and that made a lot of sense. So, I'm looking at a year that's a little more of a challenge.