May 10--A hotel's general manager, such as the Sheraton Gunter's John Gallegos, is typically its highest-paid and most prestigious employee. But many general managers enter the business taking such jobs as cleaning restrooms, making beds or parking cars. 

Before you know it, the managers say, 15 or 20 years have gone by and they're at the top. 

"I got started in the industry with no intentions of staying," said Gallegos, who has worked at hotels since he was a teen. "I was a relief night lobby attendant in high school and later became a valet attendant. Most of the time in college I was a night auditor for La Fonda (hotel) in Santa Fe, N.M." Gallegos has a degree in science and worked as a researcher for five years. But then he switched to his family's insurance business, and learned all about insuring hotels. He decided managing hotels would be a natural transition. 

"I was brought up in the hospitality business," Gallegos said. "My sister was a controller of the La Fonda hotel, and all my family put themselves through college working in the hotel business. Many have never left." Typically, a hotel's general manager oversees several assistant managers, each responsible for a phase of operations. Large hotels and conference centers also employ public relations and sales managers to promote their image and bring in business. 

Opportunities for advancement are plentiful, and hospitality workers often stay with the business because they develop a passion for it. 

"It's an addiction," Gallegos said. "The hours are incredible, but you can't leave it. You see people who leave for 10 years, and they come back." But it's not uncommon for managers to move every two years with hotel chains to advance their careers. Constant moving is the No. 1 complaint from general managers about the job. 

American Hotel & Lodging Association Chairman Kirby D. Payne started moving even before he entered the business at a young age. His father was a hotelier in Seattle, Brazil, the Bahamas and other exotic places. Payne never lived in a house until he was 13 years old. By the time he graduated from college, he had been to 23 schools. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there were 20,000 general and operations managers in 2000, or just 1 percent of the lodging industry. The bureau expects general managers to increase to 16 percent of the industry by 2010. 

Marriott's San Antonio area general manager Arthur Coulombe, who started as a night shift bellman, said although new hotel starts have been softer in the last 18 months, there is always a need for new talent. He said in the Marriott chain alone, the number of new rooms grows about 15 percent a year. 

"The need for energetic people with imagination and interpersonal skills is essentially the most important ingredient of success (for a hotel)," Coulombe said. 

Deborah Romeo, an assistant professor at St. Philip's College's Department of Tourism, Hospitality and Culinary Arts, has seen more students enroll in recent years. More high school students are considering the industry a viable career, she said. 

"The advent of the Food Network actually promoted the interest," Romeo said. 

Culinary arts is the most popular program at St. Philip's, she said, followed by hotel, restaurant, tourism and dietary management. 

Many of the industry's workers are young, according to the Bureau of Labor, because hotels provide many entry-level jobs. Almost 21 percent of hotel workers are younger than 25, compared with about 15 percent across all industries Adam's Mark San Antonio general manager Jamal Rashdi also entered the industry at a young age. He took a short hiatus from the hotel business early last year, but found himself coming back to what he's known for so many years. 

But his path to the Adam's Mark started off a little differently from the average general manager. At the age of 18, Rashdi left his homeland of Pakistan against his father's wishes to attend college in Houston. Arriving in America with just $200, he soon found working odd jobs wasn't enough. 

But after getting on with the Hyatt in Houston, he found a niche in the hospitality industry and put college on hold. 

"It was the excitement of the hotel," Rashdi said. "I knew I was contributing to the success of the hotel by doing the best job I could." Rashdi's first paycheck was $150. It took him about four years before he was promoted to management. 

But sometimes higher positions don't bring hefty salaries. According to a 1997 hospitality compensation survey, an average executive housekeeper makes $31,550, and a sales manager makes about $37,000. The director of sales and marketing could make about $70,100, while the general manager can command about $108,487. 

Rashdi said in 1991, he thought he had made the big time when he was transferred to a New York Hyatt hotel as the assistant rooms executive. He soon learned, however, that his $34,000 salary didn't go far when trying to find an apartment in New York. 

While the pay isn't always top-notch, the American hospitality industry has evolved into a respected field. That's a shift from decades past when it was seen as second class compared to Europe's older tourism industry. 

Payne, also president of the American Hospitality Management Co., said in the early 1900s, having European menus was considered the mark of an upscale property. Some hotel owners went as far as recruiting European managers to mimic the European style of hospitality professionalism. 

But Englishman Henry Feldman, president of La Mansion del Rio hotel, said this is a trend of the past. 

"I think in many respects we learned a lot from Europeans in service," Feldman said. "But the technologies we have in the United States are lessons we are now teaching Europeans." Although Feldman received many years of hotel training in Europe, he actually entered the industry in Jamaica, where his family moved when he was 14. Making just $8 a week, he held various entry-level positions until he received his first general manager assignment at 25. 

Years later after arriving in the Alamo City and having his fair share of relocations, his passion for the industry is still burning. 

"I've been in the business for 30 years, longer than that," said Feldman, who also is president of the Greater San Antonio Hotel & Motel Association. "I still learn stuff every day. Every day I wake up I truly look forward to what I'm doing. I got a lot of friends who are doctors and attorneys, and they don't have the same passion and they don't enjoy what they do." Marriott's Coulombe said in this industry, the old saying "it's in your blood" is a real phenomenon. 

"The energy and excitement of being in the hotel business is rarely duplicated," he said. "Many people find it energizing and hence stay in the industry for their entire lives." 

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