Page 17 - The New Gold Standard

Acknowledgments
ence, complete with freshly baked cakes decorated with my The
Starbucks Experience and When Fish Fly book covers. So many
other general managers rolled out the red carpet—or in the case
of Ritz-Carlton, actually the blue carpet—for me. They include
Allan Federer, Timur Senturk, Mark Sherwin, Kate Monahan,
and Mark Ferland. A word of warning to the rest of the Ritz-
Carlton general managers: be expecting me. Your colleagues and
staff have created a truly engaged guest for life.
From a personal perspective, I need to thank my research
team of Tiffany Tolmen, Kelly Merkel, Betsie Cole, Jill Merkel,
Angell Arnot, Jennie Przbysz, Adam Merkel, and most impor-
tant, Lisa Christine. Lisa was dogged in her efforts to track down
stories, secure releases, and take ownership of this project. I sus-
pect without her, there would have been a lot of blank pages in
the book. Martha Jewett, my literary agent, not only possesses
the quintessential technical skills (editing, positioning concept,
sales, negotiation) expected of an agent but she also has all the
interpersonal (nurturing, confronting, scheduling) skills that
make a project like this take flight. Also thanks to Lloyd Rich,
who always finds a way to get the deal done in a way that re-
spects all concerned.
Donya Dickerson and Herb Schaffner at McGraw-Hill gen-
tly kept challenging me to take this book to another level and
bring the information “back to the reader.” Most important,
no matter how unrealistic the timeline seemed, Donya calmly
reassured me and swiftly responded to the editorial needs of this
project. As always, Heidi Newman, copyeditor extraordinaire,
made my writing sound better than it actually is. Anthony
Landi, Mark Miller, Tim Meraz, and Terry Moore each shared
their creative talents, while so many others helped The New Gold
Standard show up on bookstore shelves.
Now to the biggest thank-you of all: Anyone who has been
involved with this project must know Lynn Stenftenagel. Lynn,
my senior vice president of operations, did everything but com-
pose the words to this book. I will never understand how such a

xv