Melissa Green, newly appointed vice president and area general manager of the Davenport Hotel Collection, has a 26-year career in the hospitality industry spanning half a dozen northeastern and southeastern states.
Green, 42, grew up in a large Italian family on Long Island, New York, and initially wanted to pursue a career in the culinary arts and open her own restaurant. She attended culinary school and, following her parents’ advice to learn the business side of the food industry, earned a bachelor’s degree in food and beverage management from Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island.
After graduating, she was hired by Marriott International Inc. as an assistant banquet manager for the company’s resort in Hanover, New Jersey.
Green began her career at Marriott International, eventually rising to senior operations manager of food and beverage at one of the company’s major hotels in Memphis. She then moved to White Lodging Services Corp., a franchise company that operates Marriott-branded hotels, and rose through the ranks to her first position as general manager.
In March 2021, she joined Davidson Hospitality Group, owned by KSL Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm that purchased the Davenport Hotel Collection in December of the same year.
The Davenport Hotel Collection, which Green now leads, consists of five hotels in downtown Spokane, including the Historic Davenport Hotel, the Davenport Tower, the Davenport Lusso, the Davenport Grand and the Centennial by Davenport Hotels.
The Journal recently caught up with Green to talk about her career in hospitality, the state of the industry and her goals in her new role.
How did you come to the decision to move from background tasks such as cooking to more administrative tasks?
Everyone in my family is very food-focused. Since I was 14, I’ve worked in the food service industry in big Italian catering halls in New York. Since I was 3, I’ve been baking in the kitchen with my mom, and that was a very important part of my life growing up. My sister and I actually have the coordinates of our mom’s kitchen that we grew up in tattooed on our arms. After high school, I went to culinary school, interned at Disney World, and was a banquet manager throughout college.
I completed my four-year degree and was fortunate enough to be recruited by Marriott International right out of college. I think Marriott saw something in me because they decided to put me in the front of the house. I told them I would rather work in the back of the house, but they offered me the position of assistant banquet manager and I immediately fell in love with the job. As much as I loved the back of the house, I realized they might be right.
So I kept it up in the front of the house. Food has always been a passion of mine. My husband went to the same culinary school as me, although not at the same time, but it’s funny that our worlds kind of crossed in that way.
You’ve moved around a lot. Is that normal for climbing the career ladder in this industry?
I was at Marriott International for quite a long time and was lucky enough to have so many great experiences. My first mentor at my first hotel gave me some advice. He said, “I’m going to tell you something that nobody told me when I was younger. They’re going to give you all these opportunities and while you’re young and single, take advantage of them.” And I said, OK. I was lucky that my parents also told me to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way. Those are opportunities that I was fortunate enough to be given and I took advantage of them.
I know a lot of people who have been able to move up without moving. I think that’s one of the unique features we have here, especially with the five hotels. We can move up without having to move. The way the hotel industry was a few years ago was more flexible, and if you wanted to move up quickly, it was easier to move. But I think you have some unique opportunities here. You don’t have to move.
What is the current situation in the hotel and restaurant industry and what do you hope to achieve in your new role?
Overall, we’re continuing to recover. After the pandemic, many industries were hit hard. From a recruiting and hiring perspective, I think we’re finally back to about 80%, which is much better than last year and the year before. We’re getting to the point where we can bring back a lot of services and experiences. My goal for 2025 is to be fully back. We’re seeing the flow of applications coming back. I think that’s a really good sign for the future.
From a business perspective, we’re seeing groups coming back and booking for 2026 and 2027, which is fantastic because those future bookings are what were slowing us down in 2022, 2023 and 2024. We didn’t see much in the books for 2024 and 2025. But now when you look at 2026, 2027 and 2028, we see those are in the books. That means those companies and associations are looking forward and investing in their future. That means we can start investing in our future because we know they’re coming.
How have your mentors helped you get to where you are now in your career?
I currently have two prominent mentors. One is my current boss, Paul Eckert, and Tony Goebel, who I’ve known for about 15 years and who recently retired. I talk to him about once a month.
I absolutely don’t think I would be where I am without my first mentor. He pushed me to try new things and was extremely open with me. He was the one who, even when I made mistakes, walked me through what I had done and showed me how I could have done it differently. He understood that I had taken a risk and it didn’t work out, but next time we’ll just try differently. He took me under his wing and introduced me to leadership-level things before I knew I was ready for it. He saw something in me before I even saw it.
When I call my current mentor, Paul, and say, “Hey, I have a crazy idea,” and whether it’s the worst idea in the world, he lets me discuss ideas with him and talk them through. I know he’s always there to support me. He called me and asked if I would move here. I know this is a really big focus for the Davidson Group and the ownership group, and he has the confidence in me to take on that role.
Do you expect any challenges in your new role?
Change is always challenging and every leader is different. I am very transparent and open. The Davenport has 97 managers, so within the first three days of arriving I went to HR and asked for an org chart for each manager. I emailed every manager and scheduled one-on-one meetings with each of them because I wanted to get to know them all. I would never remember their names if I didn’t make that personal connection.
Many people wanted to know why I decided to come here. And honestly, when I met the team on my first trip here when we were looking for a house, everyone was so warm and welcoming that I thought: we have to do this. Everything was so easy here. It seemed like everything was meant to happen the way it was meant to happen.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
