Jan. 22, 2005 - After he took charge of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau in 2003, Phillip Jones got an earful about poor service at the convention center. "With almost everyone I talked to about the center, the conversation came back to, 'You need someone like Frank Poe,' " Mr. Jones said. As an industry outsider, Mr. Jones had never met Mr. Poe, who spent more than 16 years overseeing the Dallas Convention Center before taking a similar job in 1997 Birmingham, Ala.

Once the city renewed its search last year for a convention center director, Mr. Jones took the customer feedback to heart. "I thought, why don't we just get Frank Poe?" said Mr. Jones, chief executive of the visitors bureau.

Mr. Poe, 54, got the job as director of the million-square-foot convention center in December.

Now industry players, meeting planners and local tourism officials say they have high hopes that he can help boost the city back to its former perch as one of the nation's top five convention destinations.

The center struggles to stay among the top 10, as entertainment-oriented venues such as Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., and other cities in the region such as Houston, vie more aggressively for attention. "There's a sea change happening in the convention business," said Dallas acting city manager Mary Suhm. Mr. Poe "is the right person to handle all the issues we're going to be dealing with in the next five to 10 years." And he couldn't have arrived soon enough.

Convention sales in 2004 were down more than 30 percent from their high in the late 1990s.

Although aggressive sales efforts have given bookings a boost for this year, Dallas must overcome a tarnished reputation when it comes to customer service.

"There's been some inconsistencies in service," said Mr. Poe, who has spent his first four weeks on the job meeting with customers and trying to figure out how best to organize the center's 130 employees. "Some of our procedures are out of line for what customers need," he said.

That's being diplomatic, according to some customers. "There have been several times in the last two to three years when I have suggested it would be in Dallas' better interest to shutter the center because the service was so bad," said Steve Hacker, president of the International Association for Exhibition Management in Dallas. Mr. Hacker recalled an incident last year when the exhibit hall lights went off during a major consumer show. An automated program that douses the lights had been left running.

"It took 90 minutes to reboot the system," Mr. Hacker said. "It's not rocket science. That's just inexcusable."

Sally Goldesberry, senior manager of meetings and exhibitions for the Richardson-based Society of Petroleum Engineers, said her most recent experience was frustrating.

"It was obvious that infrastructure for clear communication and empowerment of employees wasn't there," she said. "You'd request for rooms to be locked at a certain time, but the locks wouldn't work." Ms. Goldesberry, who worked with Mr. Poe during his previous Dallas tenure, said she's a big fan. "I'm just delighted he's back and in place nine months before my next event," she said.

Daniel Huerta, previously the center's interim director, said that the organization was chaotic when he arrived and that he wasn't always given the flexibility to help customers with their needs.

"People are asking for things that they didn't ask for before," said Mr. Huerta, now the executive general manager of Fair Park.

Mr. Poe is careful to temper expectations, noting that Dallas was in its heyday during his last tour of duty at the convention center. "There are a lot more choices where people can take those meetings now," Mr. Poe said. "You can't capture what was there before because the marketplace is different."

The challenge, Mr. Poe said, is to distinguish Dallas from its competitors, which now include Denver and Phoenix, and closer to home, the new Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center on Lake Grapevine. "Loyalties to a venue that might have existed in the past aren't there today," Mr. Poe said. "It's just a very different mindset." Mr. Poe said he hopes to knit the activities of the bureau and convention center more tightly together.

"We need to be in lockstep," Mr. Poe said. "If we don't do that, we're not going to see any change in prospects for conventions in the future." Mr. Poe never planned on a career running convention centers. He wanted to become a teacher and took at job as a janitor at the Dallas Convention Center while attending what is now Texas A&M-Commerce. At the time, the center consisted of an exhibit hall and arena. He became a payroll clerk for the center while working on his master's degree but faced a tough job market for educators. Instead, he stayed on with the convention center, adding responsibilities along the way. Some of his first events were rock concerts.

"Rock and roll was king, and Dallas was hot," he said, with a gleam in his eye.

He left Dallas in 1979 for a stint as director of the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla.

Mr. Poe returned to Dallas in 1980 as manager of the convention center. In 1991, he was named director, adding the Dallas Farmer's Market, WRR radio, the office of cultural affairs and Reunion Arena to his duties.

Six years later, Mr. Poe was recruited to run Alabama's Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Authority. It was a smaller market, but the compensation package was better.

The new job also meant more independence.

Unlike in Dallas, where the convention center is run as part of a city department, Birmingham's center, adjacent hotel and other assets were operated under an independent authority.

The experience in Birmingham proved invaluable, Mr. Poe said, teaching him about marketing and developing events, managing a hotel and being an underdog in a competitive market.

Mr. Poe was lured back to Dallas, where he will earn a salary of $137,500 a year. The convention bureau sweetened the offer with a $5,400 annual car allowance and up to $20,000 in performance-based incentives. He says his biggest priority is to restore customer confidence and satisfaction in the center, which hosted 144 events in the fiscal year that ended in September and had a $62.6 million operating budget.

"You can have so many of those restrictions that the customer will say 'Why bother?' " Mr. Poe said. "Instead of telling a customer what they can't do, we need to say, "How can we work with you?' "

FRANK POE

--Education: Bachelor's degree in political science and history, East Texas State University (now Texas A&M-Commerce)

--Current position: Director of convention and event services, including the Dallas Convention Center, Dallas Farmers Market, Office of Special Events, Reunion Arena and Union Station.

--Experience: Previously executive director and chief executive for the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex Authority, which includes the convention center and the 770-room Sheraton Birmingham Hotel. Served as director for the Dallas Convention Center from 1991 to 1997 and managed the facility for 11 years before that.

-----To see more of The Dallas Morning News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dallasnews.com.

(c) 2005, The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail [email protected].