About John Meeske
John F. Meeske
Career Focus - Resorts & Clubs
Resorts Marketed, Managed and Administrated & or owned by John
Pinehurst Resort & Country Club, - www.Pinehurst.com
Quail Hollow Resort & Country Club, www.QuailHollow.com
Barton Creek Resort & Country Club – www.BartonCreek.com
Shanty Creek Resort & Club – www.ShantyCreek.com
Schuss Mountain Resort & Club - www.ShantyCreek.com
The Homestead Resort & Country Club – www.thehomestead.com
Seabrook Country Club – www.DiscoverSeabrook.com
John Meeske Business Background 40 years
John Meeske is the leading consultant and major shareholder of The Resort Experience Company, LLC Currently John is working for Resort Casino Cities, LLC an emerging destination development and management company with a current focus on the development of a planned casino resort in Tunica, Mississippi. The 513 acre Destination Resort is slated to include a major Convention Facility, Signature Golf Community, multiple casinos, mega mall with indoor Water Park, Spa, Eye in the Sky and brand restaurants. John and his associates act as investment bankers for major resort & club facilities in trouble and are currently seeking funds for two such mega resorts.
John has more than 40 years of direct experience in the resort and hospitality industry. His professional career has largely been focused and dedicated toward the ownership, management, marketing, financing and repositioning of destination resorts and clubs. His areas of concentration have included golf, ski, tennis, conference and marina resorts, resort clubs, resort development projects, and destination restaurants at a variety of market levels.
Early in his career, John acquired a major resort called Shanty Creek and, after completing a merger with the neighboring Schuss Mountain creating a 4,000 acre destination resort with golf, skiing, lakes, pools, conference facilities, second homes and condos, fishing, horses, nature trails etc. In 1985, following the sale of the Shanty Creek Resort and Conference Center to ClubCorp, John was hired by the company, a world leader in private clubs, to lead and nurture the development of its “ClubResorts” division. As President of ClubResorts from 1985 to 1990, John was responsible for integrating private club and resort cultures, making resort acquisitions, turning around resorts considered to be "fallen angels", building profits, adding developments, repositioning, refinancing, and upgrading a variety of resort experiences and real estate developments. This prestigious division of the ClubCorp Company experienced unprecedented success with several resorts and resort clubs including the Pinehurst Resort & Club, The Homestead Resort & Club, Barton Creek Resort & Club, and the Quail Hollow Resort & Club.
John has served as the Director of the Center for Resort, Club & Leisure Business (CRB) at MU, the nation’s largest professional golf management school. John was brought on to add resort, club and leisure real estate to the successful golf and tennis management programs. The Mission was to become the first accredited business and liberal arts institution dedicated to resort and club management including leisure real estate as a significant part of their business school. Through the Reeves School of Business and the strategic and financial assistance of ClubCorp and The Pinehurst Company, John helped create the world's first and finest program dedicated to destination resorts and clubs in the nation.
John is a member of CAYUGA Hospitality (a Cornell consulting group), the founder and a principal of Resorts & Clubs, Inc. which owns Resort Experiences, Resort Country Clubs and is a partner in Resort Casino Cities. He is a member of the International Resort Management Association also represents USA Partners in North Carolina where he has served on the Board of the Downtown Development Corp. in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
There were two key mentors that played a major role in John’s career. The first was H Gary Morse, CEO, founder and major stockholder of The Villages in Central Florida. Gary helped form John’s entrepreneurial instincts and marketing talent. The Villages is one of the largest and most successful resort retirement complexes (40 sq. miles) in the nation. The second mentor was Robert H. Dedman, who purchased John’s resorts in Michigan and gave him the opportunity of a life time. John was hired to help this billionaire and founder / CEO of the most successful Country Club Company in the world add mega resorts, like Pinehurst, to his portfolio. The operating protocol that was used to develop the culture to operate what he called “Giant Country Clubs with Sleeping Rites” was one of the keys to John being hired to startup the public company Myriad Entertainment and Resorts, Inc.
John received his bachelor's degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Washington State University, before earning an MBA from Michigan State University with a focus on finance and hospitality management.
He and his wife, Carol, reside in North Carolina. The couple has three children and four grandchildren.
Business Experiences
Restaurants: (Leases, Management Contracts, and Ownership)
- Mackinaw City Fort Restaurant – Leased while going to College
- Brownwood Farmhouse Restaurant & Saloon – Leased
- Schuss Mountain Ivanholf Restaurant – Management Contract
- Dills Old Town Saloon – Owned & Operated for 28 years
Destination Golf, Ski, Convention & Leisure Real Estate Resorts: (Ownership, Management Contracts, Corporate Executive)
- Hilton Shanty Creek Ski & Golf Resort with Leisure Real Estate – Management Contract & Ownership 12 years
- Schuss Mountain Ski & Golf Resort – Management Contract & Ownership – 10 years
- Hilton Shanty Creek & Schuss Mountain – Merger & Acquisition Sold to ClubCorp in 1985
President of ClubResorts Division of ClubCorp: 5 years
After selling Hilton Shanty Creek and Schuss Mountain to ClubCorp, I was asked to become President of ClubResorts, a newly formed division of ClubCorp. My position was to work with the COO Jerry Dickenson (a 25 year veteran of ClubCorp) to blend the cultures of a Club with the Resort culture, creating the best Club & Resort Culture in the world which was ultimately named ClubResorts. It was the experience and opportunity that lead me to a series of relationships with public companies, Investment banking opportunities, and consulting positions leading to ClubCorps & ClubResorts backing me at The Center for Resort, Club & Leisure Real Estate at Methodist University.
Utilize my forty five years of hands on business experience to create and grow strategic programs in marketing and business management, build unique and effective class concentrations, and ultimately lead a department major or a business school as its Dean, concentrating on helping students find and accomplish successful careers that fit their God given Signature Strengths.
My forty year background as a destination ski, golf resort and restaurant owner/operator, as well as a corporate executive with ClubCorp & ClubResorts coupled with my 35-year dedication to education, (which includes diverse career experiences on university boards, teaching and university administration), has fortified my ability to reach my ultimate Mission.
While my passion is teaching, my Mission is to facilitate youths in finding their passion and teaching them how to pursue it, resulting in a path to their success. My background in business, education , internships and the new employment / human resource strategies has lead me to my Mission of becoming a leader, Dean or President of a business school where these new concepts in employment & business leadership, in the emerging “Experience Economy”, can grow.
John Meeske Education Experiences - 35 years
My career includes 35 years serving on University & College Boards, speaking to college classes, teaching at a University level, including MBA Classes, starting and heading up a new department The Center for Resort, Club & Leisure Real Estate (“CRB”) at Methodist University (“MN”) and coaching students in the art of maximizing the value of their education with personal happiness.
Once I had completed most of my business goals I switched to positioning myself to finish my personal ambition which included becoming a professor, program director and ultimately Dean of a Business School. A former business partner of 20 years, Mr. Pat Corso, had continued as the CEO of Pinehurst Hotel & Country Club for ClubCorp and had eventually assumed my previous position as President of ClubResorts. He has always understood that my goal was to finish my overall career in education – my personal passion.
Pat served on the MU School of Business board which in 1999 was contemplating the addition of a hotel school to their Reeves School of Business. At that time there were 593 such hotel management programs in the nation. Pat suggested a “resort school” versus another hotel school, given the proximity of Pinehurst Hotel & Country Club. The MU Reeves School of Business already had very successful Professional Golf Management (“PGM”) & Professional Tennis Management (“PTM”) four year programs and MU was accredited. Knowing my grasp of the industry, he suggested they give me the opportunity to build the program given the startup and turnaround nature of my career. The union was mutually successful, and for the past eight years I have been building the CRB at MU along with my consulting business as CEO of Resorts and Clubs, International.
As luck, and hard work, would have it, Prentice Hall has asked the CRB to write the first text book on the subject in which the new Director, Sharon Hendricks, has ask me to be part of the team to write this text.
Undergraduate & Graduate Courses taught
Hospitality:
Introduction to Hospitality Management 203 - MU
Food and Beverage Management 200 & 300 - MU
Hospitality Marketing 360 - MU
Hospitality Management 350 - MU
Hospitality Internship 170 & 270 - MU
Seminars 110, 210, 310, 410 - MU
Capstone Hospitality Management 349 – Central Michigan Hotel School
Real Estate:
Principals of Leisure Resort Real Estate 400 - MU
MBA Principals of Real Estate - MU
Marketing:
Principals of Marketing 350 - MU
Advertising & Promotion 360 - MU
Sales (Building Partnerships) 370 - MU
Marketing Hospitality 350 - MU
University & College Involvement
Methodist University
Reeves School of Business - 8 years
Founder and Director of The Center for Resort, Club & Leisure Real Estate Business - 8 years
This accredited ASCSSB university in North Carolina is the largest and most successful PGM, PTM and CRB concentration in the nation and the only one of its kind. The CRB addition to the concentration was my first opportunity to create an entire program from scratch at an accredited university.
Given my extensive background in marketing I taught all but one of the marketing classes in the Reeves School of Business. While the hotel and restaurant business is based on location the success of the resort, club & leisure real estate business is a product of effective marketing
I created the principals of real estate at MU because over 50% of the resort, country club, golf and tennis business is improving the value of real estate. This addition became a major success story given we had nearly 400 students in the PGM, PTM, and CRB all seeking more insight into this vital component of the leisure industry.
The success of the principal of real estate at an undergraduate level led to the addition to the real estate to the hospitality MBA of which I participated as a MBA visiting professor.
I am currently a consultant and executive in residence at MU where I commit two weeks per year to work with their students on building careers in the resort, club & leisure real estate industry.
Michigan State University Business School
School of Hotel, Restaurant & Institutional Management Advisory Board - 4 years
In the 1970s this hotel school was ranked 2d in the nation with 900 students and was only behind Cornell. After major disruption of the leadership in this hotel school, a lawsuit evolved and the school dropped to a ranking of 14th and enrollment dropped to 267 students.
At this time a special board of industry leaders was assembled by the new Director of the HRI program Dr. Ronald Cichy. The mission was to turnaround and reposition the MSU/ HRI program to its former ranking - I was asked to join this board representing my former resorts and the company I sold these resort to - ClubCorp.
The board, Dr. Cichy along with Industry leaders and the Staff reengineered the program and its fallen angle position to a vibrant Hotel & Restaurant School with over 600 HRI students.
While rebuilding the School we simultaneously added the equivalent of Cornell University’s “Career’s for Life” program.. We added the Careers for Life Program to Michigan State University (MSU) called SIRC and is in place today for the students and their careers. My role was to bring the fund raising program to Dr. Cichy. We started by raising about $25,000 the first year and by the fourth year were raising $275,000 per year. The whole experience was successful and Dr. Cichy is still the Director of the HRI program at MSU.
Central Michigan University
Business School Board – 7 years
This board of 25 prominent Business Leaders was assembled to assist Dr. Hogan who was specifically hired to obtain accreditation for the CMU Business School. Dr. Placta was hired facilitate the reengineering process and continue as the Dean once CMU Business School become accredited.
Due to the difficult nature of the way the School of Business was operated at Central Michigan University the entire process took us five years to accomplish. This was the first time for many of us to face the difficulty of accrediting a school especially one in trouble. We accomplished this task in five years however; I stayed on the board for an additional two years to see the spoils of our work.
My partners and I owned two major destination golf, ski, conference and leisure real estate resorts” called Shanty Creek & Schuss Mountain near Central Michigan in Northern Michigan. We used Central Michigan for Internships and hired their graduates when possible. The then head of the hotel and restaurant school, Dr. Ken McCleary, had me teach their capstone business course one quarter every other year. I was asked to speak to various groups of students virtually every year – always accepted the opportunity. This is probably where I really gained my passion for teaching – packed the class and got great reviews. The head of the hospitality school Dr. Ken McCleary and I ultimately wrote an article for the Cornell Quarterly.
Ferris State University
Advisory Board, School of Hospitality and Restaurant Management – 5 years
In addition to Restaurant & Hotel Management Ferris had one of the first PGM Golf and PTM Tennis schools in the nation. Our resorts had seven golf courses, eight chair lifts, 50,000 sq ft of Conference Space and 720 rooms to fill not counting the 4000 acres we sold for second homes & condominiums. Again we used Ferris students as interns and provided careers for graduates. While I did not attend all of the meetings our managers were involved given the importance of obtaining educated graduates to operate these complex resort, club and leisure real estate projects.
Northwood Institute
Lecturer and Advisor – Lecturer to Hospitality program virtually every Semester – 10 years
This Hotel & Restaurant School had the finest Internship program for hospitality students in the State of Michigan. The leader visited our Resort EVERY Summer to evaluate our internship program and his students.
