Government: Five Plans Considered for Revamp Of Regional Agencies
Asked about an average day at Trigild Corp., executives Bill Hoffman and Karl Winston describe an office that’s usually half empty because employees are out in the field.
A phone call about a new business to run prompts an urgent to-do list, they say: equipment must be repaired, employees have to be hired and a marketing plan needs to be developed.
The two then erupt into laughter. “What we’re both trying to say,” Winston explained, “is that, requently, it’s chaos.”
Still, scrambling has become a fine-tuned dance of sorts for Sorrento Valley-based Trigild, which manages hotels and other properties and businesses, including many that have been repossessed by lenders.
Other clients are simply investors, for which Trigild will run their property. One such contract has Trigild operating a hotel in Mission Valley for 20 years.
Rather than operating properties that simply involve basic maintenance and collecting rent, Hoffman, the firm’s president and CEO, prefers projects that involve running a business, he said.
Branching Out
Twenty years ago, Trigild started with a focus on hospitality properties and later branched into other industries. In that time, the company has achieved respect in the hotel and property management industry.
“The reputation among other management companies is that Trigild sets the standard for ethics and quality,” said Lawrence Horwitz, president and CEO of Seattle-based Northwest Lodging. “They’re consistent in their results and the principals involved with Trigild are recognized leaders within the industry, in particular Bill Hoffman.”
Horwitz, who first became aware of Trigild in 1994, doesn’t operate any properties in Southern California. As a competitor in the general market, though, he said Trigild sets the standard for consistent performance.
“I would hire Trigild today, if I was in Southern California with a property and we weren’t operating it ourselves.”
Merritt Doyle, regional sales manager for Austin, Texas-based high tech company Wayport Inc., has been working with Trigild in a deal that will have Wayport installing high speed internet access in Trigild hotels.
Doyle described Trigild as “very competent and capable.”
Trigild had sales of $20 million in 1999, and projected revenues of $30 million this year, Hoffman said.
Diverse Properties
Trigild projects are as far-ranging as a bar in Butte, Mont., a water park in San Diego, hotels in Arizona and a Pizza Hut in New Jersey.
The company has also found success in industries such as insurance and maquiladoras. They’ve also run a liquor store and a trucking company.
And now, if plans proceed, it could become involved with technology companies, too. Trigild launched a technology management firm two years ago.
Winston, the firm’s executive vice president and COO, sees a need for it. Many tech companies have good ideas but need assistance with the business side of their operations, such as accounting and marketing, he said.
Hoffman is emphasizing that he’s in the people business.
“All management is really a matter of using people to get tasks done, whether we have to deliver a food product at a particular crowd in San Diego or at a saloon in Butte or a pizza place in New Jersey,” he said. “Carl doesn’t do the cooking, and I don’t wash the dishes; somebody else has to do that.
Search For Talent
“So, no matter what it is you’re running, you go out and find the people that have the particular talents you need and then provide them a good environment for them to be able to do that.”
Hoffman’s guiding principle for his work, he said, is that many people have bad bosses.
“When jobs are plentiful and there’s a lot of money, how do you attract people and keep them?” he noted. “The good news, as far as we’re concerned, is that a lot of companies manage people badly.”
The firm’s “turnaround” work took off in the late ’80s and early ’90s, amid the savings and loan failures, Hoffman said.
He said Trigild tends to run the business or property anywhere from six months to a year, at which time the lender usually sells it.
Although they often get the tip-off to potential projects months in advance, the actual call to action often takes place within days. One example was the Pizza Hut restaurants.
“Literally a week ago, they said, ‘All right, in seven days, we need you to be in New Jersey and take over a dozen restaurants put together a marketing plan, talk to vendors that haven’t been paid, hire 200 new employees, get them all signed up and under payroll, in time to get to work.’ ”
Extensive Travel
Trigild’s first move: “Call the airline,” Hoffman and Winston said in unison.
Hoffman travels slightly less than 30 percent of his time, Winston about 50 percent. The company’s vice president of operations travels 70 percent of his time, they noted.
One of Trigild’s more unusual projects as of late was the former White Water Canyon water park in Chula Vista.
It’s since become Knott’s Soak City, USA, but last summer, Hoffman and crew had run it for the lender.
They fixed up the park, accelerated its marketing and significantly boosted attendance, making it a more attractive sales prospect.
Ohio-based Cedar Fair LLP, which owns Knott’s Berry Farm and several other entertainment ventures, purchased the park last year.
To hear Winston explain it, the difference between a hotel and a water park isn’t as much as one might guess.
It’s a larger and more complicated pool than any hotel’s, which prompts slightly different engineering needs, but the food outlets are just like a quick-service restaurant, he said.
Matching Goals
The goals are the same, Hoffman said. The hospitality business is about pleasing people, he explained. “You want to get a lot of people to smile,” he said.
Hoffman cautions that he’d like to be known for more than his toolbelt.
Trigild runs many untroubled properties, he noted. Among the local ones are the Ramada Inn in Mission Valley and the Days Inn in Encinitas.
Clients tend to be financial institutions, Hoffman said. Trigild finds new clients through word-of-mouth, whether from law firms that handle repossessed properties or other lenders.
Hoffman is a lawyer, having attended Thomas Jefferson School of Law when he first moved to San Diego from his native Chicago.
His night job, doing accounting work for a local hotel, prompted his interest in the hospitality business, Hoffman recalled.
Since then, his work has blossomed into a reputation Horwitz said is earned, not anointed.
“If you talked with hotel owners, hotel franchisers, as well as other CEOs of competing management companies, I think that the concurrence would be that everybody holds Bill Hoffman and Trigild in very high esteem,” he said.
“The management business is a combination of doing lots of little things correctly, as well as a combination of getting it right the first time,” Horwitz continued. “We all stumble because we’re in an industry that is very competitive. We’re affected by a number of factors.”
That’s where Trigild makes its mark, he said. “Whether it’s interest rates, fuel prices, weather conditions, it’s that they’re able to adapt to changing market situations quite well.”
