Women Thriving in Construction (Ep 20) | Sarah Traedway

Few industries exhibited as much agility during the pandemic as the hospitality industry. As a fifth-generation hospitality/construction leader, Sarah Treadway, President/CEO of Stout Street Hospitality, discusses how they kept every hotel open after dropping from 600 to 86 employees in March 2020 in an effort to take care of as many of their employees as possible. Sarah shares amazing insights on leadership and how her organization maintains a "family culture"; on her strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome as she balances her role as mom to four young children; and on how her company is investing in their greatest asset, their people, via strategies such as paying for the higher education of all dependents.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Women Thriving in Construction, a podcast of the International Institute for Women in Construction. Interested in building a global movement? We are. We want to help solve the global construction talent shortage by highlighting organizations, associations, unions, teams, and individuals who are implementing strategies that help attract, develop, and maintain women in construction. Join us as we reshape industry thinking.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Please note that this episode was originally recorded as an episode of the Greatness Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

This is Gretchen Gable, and I am so excited today to welcome Sarah Treadway, president and co-CEO of Stout Street Hospitality to the Greatness Podcast. Welcome, Sarah.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Thank you, Gretchen. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah, and it's so fun that Sarah's sitting in Denver, my hometown, for the last 27 years that I was in the United States. I'm still sitting in Melbourne, Australia, but it's um it's fun to think about you being in my hometown and what a wonderful hometown it is. And Sarah, we have a lot of fun things to talk about today, but I always like to start with people about their stories. How did you become passionate about the hospitality industry and the things that you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:20

That's a great question, Gretchen. And I also love Denver. I've been here for 40 years, and I'm currently sitting in my office in downtown Denver, in our hotel here in downtown Denver, the Magnolia. I got my passion for hospitality as a young child. My father started developing hotels here in Denver in the early 80s. And I remember my mother tells a famous story. I was probably six or seven years old, and I came home from first grade and I was doing a project about what I wanted to be when I grew up. And my mother was a professor at Metro State for 30 years in the English department. My dad was a hotel developer. And I had written this project for first grade talking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I said that it was a business guy like my dad. My mom said, What about being a teacher like mom? You know, I do all these fun things and you get to do all in. I said, Oh no, mommy, I want to be a business guy like dad because when he comes home from work, he watches TV. And when you come home from work, you keep working. Wow. What an insight at that age. What I didn't know that I know now that as the mother of four, no matter what your job is, you keep working when you get home. So but I just always wanted to be in a family business. I it wasn't a family business before my brother and I came back. Um my dad was in a family business prior, but when he started the hotel company, he had no other generations with him. And I wanted to work with him. I loved the hotel business. As a children, my brothers and I all worked at the hotels. So even in middle school, I got a job putting out the complimentary breakfast, the bagels, and the coffee during the week. And during the summers, the one I remember most was when we were developing the downtown Denver Magnolia, 1993-1994. Um, those those summers were construction summers. And so I was on the cleaning construction crew. Because, of course, as a 16-year-old girl, I couldn't actually be doing much of the construction, but I could work on the construction cleaning crews, and those were the toughest jobs that I ever had. But it just ingrained this like love of the development of historic buildings and the love of hospitality in me. And I went to work in hotels as soon as I graduated from college.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Wow. So this is an interesting interesting industry to have been in for the last three years. Tell us a little bit about what that's been like.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Sure. The pandemic has hit us, you know, it's hit every industry in different ways. Our industry was hit very hard. Our hotels traditionally are in urban centers. We are traditionally business travel hotels, and those have been the slowest to come back from the pandemic. In March of 2020, we had six hotels around the country, all full service, all with restaurants, all with large catering space, banquet and events, business travel hotels. We had approximately 600 full-time employees. And by the end of March, we had 86 employees. Lots of my counterparts decided to close their hotels, and that was the right decision for them. We decided to stay open with to employ as many people as we could, keep those people safe. And being in a family business, running a family business, the extension to our employees really feel like family also. And so to continue to be able to take care of those 86 employees and their families was very important to us. And in return, those 86 employees were really taking care of us, you know, keeping the hotels clean, keeping them open, keeping them safe. Um, it's very difficult, as you know, in construction to close a building and not have anyone checking on it. Right. Lots of bad things can happen in buildings that are not um occupied. So we decided to do that. We also, of course, thought the pandemic was only gonna last for any three months, six months. We did not know that it was going to be a two-year ordeal. And so I'm very proud of those teams that when we ask them to work longer, work harder, work hours they weren't used to, do jobs they weren't used to doing. You know, you've got your controller working at the front desk and cleaning rooms and working overnight. And every person on property had to do those jobs. Um, and instead of them doing it for three months, they really did those jobs for 18 months until we were hiring people back. Um, one thing that's different about our industry is that we are open 24 hours a day, we are open seven days a week, we're open on Christmas, we're open on your birthday. And traditionally, I would visit our teams, you know, every month, every quarter to be on property and be with the teams. And then when the pandemic hit, that all came to a crashing halt. And so at the end of May, my dear husband came up with this crazy plan. Um he works for an insurance company and he traditionally travels all the time, but his travel had was stopped. And so he was working from home and had a lot of flexibility. Um, he said, let's do it. Let's buy an RV, pack up all four of our very young children, the oldest, the oldest of whom was five years old, and our OPER from South Africa, and drive around so that you can visit all of your hotels all over the country. Wow. And a few weeks later, we did. We packed everybody up and we went 5,300 miles, 17 states, and uh I got to have breakfast, lunch, or dinner with all of the 86 employees and talk to them about what their life was like in the pandemic and how and how things had changed. And and we got to teach our kids how to strip beds and fold sheets and do some things at the hotels. Um, we had a wonderful time, and it was a huge learning experience for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

But that's something I'm very proud of that we did to stay connected with our people through the worst of times in May, June, and July of 2020.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Wow, what a great story! And it sounds like you're very focused on a particular culture within your organization. Tell us how, as a leader, you really think about the culture of your company and and and allow that culture to thrive.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Absolutely, Gretchen. Well, like I said, my father started the company, and his theory was always family first, and education is the most important gift that you can give to someone. So I have just tried to continue that legacy that he built. He ingrained in people that they could do anything that they've set their minds to do. So he loved paying for the education of our employees. He loved helping take care of the extended family. And in return, people became extremely loyal to him. And like I said, when that when the pandemic hit, many of our employees were 25 to 30 year employees. It was it was very common to have even housekeepers and maintenance men who'd been with the company for more than 20 years. Uh, so I have just tried to continue that that sense of community that he built. I I made a few changes when I came back. He had ingrained education assistance in our company, which in the early 80s, most that was sort of new that a lot of companies weren't doing that. And he tr as it is done traditionally, was really just paying for the education of the employee. When I came back, I analyzed it and thought we're not providing enough education assistance. And when you talk to our employees, we have an enormous number of um line staff employees and lots of immigrants that work for us. And when speaking to them, they said, I don't want to go to college, Sarah. I want my son to go to college, I want my granddaughter to go to college. And so 12 years ago, we made a really easy switch to our program. And now we pay for any dependence higher education, which now, of course, we have a huge uptick in the number of people that are taking advantage of that. And our employees can feel that we care about their families more than average. You know, we also do some interesting things because of this, because of our diverse population. We pay for people to become citizens in the United States. It's a difficult and expensive process. We don't get to do it nearly enough, but probably once a year someone at one of the hotels becomes a citizen, and we really get to participate and um help them along that journey. So those are a couple of the ways that we build culture.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah, that's so fascinating. And what kind of pressures do you face being a second generation leader? Because that can be a unique position in business.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Absolutely. Um, well, and in many ways, my brother would say we're fourth generation because my grand my great-grandfather started a construction business in Iowa, which then my father started working in, and he moved our family from Iowa to Colorado to expand that construction business.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

But in the early 80s in Denver, construction wasn't, you know, building other people apartments wasn't really successful, which is nuts now, because now you can't build apartments fast enough here in Denver.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

And then he's he pivoted to the hotel business. So now I'm second generation hotel family business, but fourth generation, you know, family business. And there's a ton of pressure not to mess it up, right? Like, can we make sure that it's here for the third generation or the fifth generation? Um, we have made some major changes because of that pandemic. We traditionally we had um we had partners in a lot of our hotels. And over the course of the year, over the course of the last decade, my brother Eric and I have been buying out almost all of our partners in the hotels to make sure that uh we had our family had all the controls so that we could be better set up for success to make sure that we had them around for the next generation. Right. And then I also am very sensitive about whether or not the next generation wants it, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

So no pressure. I like I said, I have four kids. My brother has two kids. We have another brother who's not in the business who has two kids. So there are potentially eight grandchildren, but the oldest of whom right now says she wants to be a filmmaker. My oldest is only seven, and right now he wants to go to the moon. So we'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Pressure's not the right word. What's what's the unique position of being a woman in this industry, especially with property development? You know, it's beyond hospitality into the development. And as you said, you started out as a cleaning crew in a construction site when you were 16. How has that felt as a woman?

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Um, I love it. I in from a child, I was always used to being around all men. I have two brothers, and my father is one of four boys, so there have just always been lots of men in my life. Um, it has given me some unique opportunities. I mean, often sitting in meetings with the construction crews or the elevator companies, I'm the only, I'm the only woman there. And and I have found, especially recently, that people really give voice to what I have to say because people want differences of opinions in those sorts of meetings. And so I am very careful now, as I've learned and gotten older, I'm very careful about what I say because I think that often my opinion can have maybe more weight than if there are seven people who all are men, you know, arguing in one direction or another. So I really take the time to do a lot of research and learn about the topics. Because to your point, we own and run hotels, but really I run lots of construction projects every year, right? We're always under construction. There's always a hurricane somewhere knocking out a hundred rooms in whichever hotel you name it, or a flood in Omaha, or shoot, there was a 100-year freeze in Texas last year. Who would have, I mean, that caused crazy amounts of damage. So constantly running construction projects, um, which is fun. And I and I love and I I thrive on that. And I hope that as the years go on, that there are more women around the table with me.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah. So what advice do you have for those women out there that you want around the table for you? If you're if you were to speak, we were just talking about my my daughter just graduated with her accounting degree, and I'm I'm trying to drag her into the construction industry because I love the industry. Her father's a general contractor. I've been in the industry most of the last 35 years. So, what what advice do you have for women that want to get into construction or hospitality or something that's maybe a more male-dominated field?

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Absolutely. It's a great question. And I would say it's a term that I've just learned over the last year through some of my coaching, and that's imposter syndrome. And if you don't know, if your daughter doesn't know what it is, Google it. Because we all have it, and the men in the room have it too. But as women, we tend to, you know, if we have if we're applying for a job and we only have 90% of the qualifications, we'll really focus on those 10%. Whereas a man with 90% is like, oh, this is gonna be a slam dunk. I've got 90%.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

And and everyone has imposter syndrome. I it doesn't matter if you're the you know, the president of the biggest construction company in the whole world, or you know, your daughter just graduating from college, and you just have to take those doubting thoughts and put them at the back of your mind and call your mom, call, you know, call me, and we'll tell you how great you are and pump you back up. Um and just keep keep remembering that, even when you get turned down for a job or yeah, yeah, it's so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

I can unpack so many things there. We just last week kicked off the fifth cohort of a women's leadership program in the pipeline industry here in Australia that I run. It's kind of funny how I ended up um, I've never run, I've spoken at a lot of women's leadership, but uh they I spoke at their conference two weeks after I arrived in Australia. They had a CEO panel, the head of the association said, I'm I'm embarrassed there's not a woman sitting here. We we need to do something. I took them out for coffee, you know, said, Hey, how about we create a women's leadership program? And now we have 125 women that have gone through the program, which has been great. But each cohort selects, they have a kickoff of a day and a half, but then they select their topics for the rest of the program. And imposter syndrome was number one last week. And confidence imposter syndrome has come up in every in fact, I've just found a new speaker that focuses only on imposter syndrome to come and speak to them. And you're right, we we all have it.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

We all have it, we all have it, and I think that I think the higher you um strive and the higher you get, the bigger it gets, you know. Like Iesh, I'm running a company with 700 people, or I I probably am not qualified to do that. I'm not good enough. Gretchen wants to have me on her podcast. What am I gonna say? I don't have anything to say. Yeah, what are people gonna want to hear?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Um, and you just have to dive in and believe in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

And I love meeting with young people who uh, you know, like you, to mentor them and lead them. So just come on down to the Magnolia in Denver, knock on my door.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Great. Well, and and one of the things that I've done um deliberately, accidentally, probably in the beginning, and then deliberately, is talk to people about having fans. Everybody needs to have raving fans in your life, and I know who my greatest fans are. Uh, it's fun. Barb Grogan, who you may know in Denver, is one of my Oh, I love her. She so I I um stay with her when I'm in Denver, and she is a person that um just tells me that I'm awesome all the time. And it kind of used to happen accidentally, but now I know when I need a fan day. I know when I need to talk to somebody that's gonna really pump me up, and so that's been one of my deliberate strategies when you're um thinking about um, you know, having imposter syndrome. I mean, I I recently um interviewed for the board and was not selected, but it was really um flattering to interview for a board of a company that does nine billion a year, big company, and uh I had to get really pumped up to even think that I could do it. And so Barb was the person that pumped me up before going and speaking to this company. Do you have other tips for people out there about what you do to combat imposter syndrome?

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Well, that I can't believe what a small world it is. I actually look for my ambassadors too, and was talking and reached out to Barb about a board position, and she took me out to lunch, and um, she is one of my ambassadors too, and it's true, she's the person for me that just like makes me feel amazing. Yeah. And she's so amazing that I'm like, I can't believe Barb's having lunch with me. She's so great. Um, so I also do that. I reach out to my ambassadors, and I have been actively doing that only for a year. So I would give people the advice to start doing that much younger and to figure out who they really are. Because when I put down, I wrote them actually down on a piece of paper. These are the people who are my big ambassadors. These are the people who I know are gonna do everything they can to support me. And then it was interesting because when I did reach out and have conversations with those people as I needed support, some of them, it turned out, weren't as big of ambassadors as I thought they were gonna be. So sometimes it takes a little work and a little research. Barb was on the top of my list, and she was amazing and is definitely an ambassador of mine. But there were other people who are still great contacts, but I found that they weren't quite as supportive. Like when I talked about, for example, wanting to go for a board position of one kind or another, it was from those people I got. Well, you're never gonna get that one. Yeah, 9 billion is too big for you. Yeah. I don't want to hear that nine billion is too big for me. I want to hear that nine billion is right where I'm gonna go next. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Well, and interestingly, I'm much more mindful to pay it forward and do this and be a fan for other people. So these 25 women that I just met in Adelaide last week, I told them all I am your fan now. And um, just yesterday I was meeting with a young woman I met a couple of years ago who's back out on the job market, and um, you know, pumped her up and told her how amazing she is and how gifted and talented and she At the end of the conversation, said, Oh my gosh, I'm I'm so grateful to you for spending time with me. I know how busy you are. And um that's the other thing, not to totally digress about these sponsors and ambassadors and wonderful people in our lives. Uh, Barb Grogan and my other um close sponsor, um Hugh Rice, they they make me feel like I'm the only person in the world when I'm talking to them. And that is such a gift. When you're having lunch with Barb Grogan, she is in a hundred percent focused on you, how amazing you are. Yeah, that's a lesson I've really tried to incorporate into my life. That's a great lesson.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

And you asked for other um sort of tips. Uh, one other thing I do, if we're talking about women and rising women specifically, I also, like I've mentioned in the past, I'm the mother of four. So I run this company and with my brother and my CFO, but I'm also a mom of four kids. So that's a big job, too. And at the beginning of this year, things were out of balance. And so one thing that I did was I reached out to everyone who puts meetings on my calendar, the PR agency, the hotels, the management company, everyone, and said, Hey, only put meetings on my calendar between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Because 25 hours of in-person or Zoom meetings is enough in a 50-hour work week. Because I have to have 25 hours to do the other work. But then that gives me a lot of flexibility to take my kid to school if I want to, or pick them up from school if I want to, and work at night or work earlier in the morning. And that has really been a game changer for the balance in my life. And my imposter syndrome didn't allow me to send that email for a while. Because I thought these people are all gonna say she's being with her kids all the time, she doesn't work, she's only gonna work 24 five hours a week. And guess what? No one said that, no one's questioned how much I work ever. Right. Because you work a lot, right? And so it was totally fine. And then I can choose, hey, we've got something big going on, we've got to redesign Omaha really quickly because there was a flood and the contractor has to start. Then I can choose to have a meeting at 8 a.m. and whatever. But uh it's been great. That's been a well, yeah, big move.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

You you led into my next topic, which was about being a working mom. I don't know if you know about my book, The Eight Steps to Being a Great Working Mom, or my TEDx Talk. Um, I did them to get that topic off my chest because when I I traveled every week until my kids were seven and eight years old, and people would say to me, Oh my gosh, who watches your kids when you're gone every single week? And so I started saying, you know what? I put them in the trunk of my car with a little food and water, and so far it seems to be working out fine. Like, why are you saying this to me? I had cut down to two nights a week and put those boundaries. And I never traveled after my daughter was born more than an average of two nights a week. Once I hit eight weeks, eight nights in a month, um, I was done. And it's interesting uh because sometimes people do say things to us. I changed to reporting to a different person in this big investment banking strategy firm. And I sent him my goals, including averaging two nights a week of travel. And he said he called me immediately and said, Hey, I just don't see how this is gonna work. And I said, Well, have you been happy with my billings for the last two years? Yes. I've only been traveling two nights a week, you just didn't know that. So there was this real paradigm that you had to travel four nights a week to reach your billing utilization, and I just got really creative in ways to um do things remotely.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Absolutely. It's interesting. I also have that rule. Um, and I'm in YPO, Colorado, and one of the things that we do as a group every year is go on a three-night retreat somewhere, and sometimes it's in Aspen, but then sometimes it's in Chicago. Um and every single year when it comes along, you know, it's like kind of the thing, it's it's a mandatory trip. And I every single year I say, Hey, I'm only coming for two nights. And every year they all say, No, no, but it's three nights and you can't miss the thing. And I'm like, I've got a hard stop on two nights. So whichever two, not the first and third, but first and second and second and third, I'll come for two nights. But there's really unless my husband and I are leaving the kids at home alone and he and I are going on a trip, then I don't need to be away from them for more than two nights. But I but my husband and I for sure go on a whole week's vacation without our kids for seven nights every year.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

But if it's for work, then two nights is enough. You get plenty of money.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Yeah, it's that's one whole chapter in my book. Uh, I wrote I interviewed 25 women for the book so that it wasn't just my ideas about what to do as a working mom, but this ability to set boundaries and to feel okay about it. And I think it's awesome that you only schedule meetings from uh 10 and until three. And you know what? I realize now, Sarah, that you and I probably have so many points of connection that we could have continued to explore for hours. Well, I know of both friends with Lee Hitz. Yes. Yes, I was just sitting here thinking about that. My last company retreat was at the Magnolia because of Lee. We I brought the whole continuum advisory group and we stayed and met at the Magnolia. Oh, thank you. And um had a wonderful time. So I need to get back there. I I literally we could talk for hours, but we're going to have to wrap up. Um, I just have so much admiration for you for what you're doing in the industry, for what you've been through, for the respect and kindness that you've treated your people with in your industry. Any parting tips as a leader? Because I teach leadership at the Australian National University and University of Denver in the MBA programs. So I use these podcasts quite a bit with students just to let them know that I'm not the only person that has some of these crazy ideas about leadership. So, as a leader, any closing um tips for our listeners out there?

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Sure. Well, to all of your DU MBA listeners, I'm also a DU MBA, so go pyOs. Yes. Um you know, and my leadership advice pre-pandemic and post-pandemic is exactly the same. And you touched on it before, and it's really all about the people. If you're taking care of your people, no matter what industry you're in, that's your asset. That's the biggest thing you have. And so do what you can to be creative to think about how you can care for them the best. Because when you do, whatever widget you sell is going to be better. You'll have bet better customers, more customers, a more successful product if the people that work with you are um happy and taken care of and their families are happy and taken care of.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Such great advice, Sarah. It's been a real Yeah, it's been a real joy. Best of continued luck with your two companies, the company you run in hospitality and the family company that you run as well. And um I will look forward to connecting with you in person in Denver during a future trip.

SPEAKER_02 29:31

Thank you so much, Gretchen. It was a pleasure to meet you.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Interested in finding out more? Visit the International Institute for Women in Construction website at iiwic.org. Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram, and definitely connect to our founder and CEO, Dr. Gretchen Gagel. Thank you for listening.