Your Alumni

Veteran hotel manager is clearly enjoying her stay at the Travelodge

By Greg Forbes Siegman

The business card reads “general manager,” but the title doesn’t paint a complete picture of Susan Cameron, BA’76.

The head of  Thunder Bay, Ontario’s Travelodge hotel also teaches a convention management course at a local college.

“Teaching is a second job, but I think of it as my contribution to keeping the hospitality industry going down the road,” Cameron says.

Teaching is just one of many ways Cameron gives back. She has also been active in the Thunder Bay Business Women’s Network and volunteers in support of the Northwestern Ontario Regional Cancer Foundation. Her interest in cancer-related causes is personal. Several years ago, she fought—and beat—breast cancer.

“It made me believe anything you can imagine, you can do,” she says. “I imagined that I could beat breast cancer, and I did.”

Cameron and her husband, Terry, have passed down their interest in making a difference to their daughters. Jessica works at a local cancer clinic while Kelly pursues a teacher’s certificate after teaching English in Taiwan. Cameron graduated with honours in political science and a minor in geography. “I loved legal theory, Canadian history and climatology. To this day, I am a weather junkie!”

But running the Travelodge—not teaching, volunteering or tracking temperature—remains the native Albertan’s full-time job.

Cameron, who has worked at the hotel for more than 20 years, feels her experience has been essential to her successful interaction with staff.

“I’ve held almost any position here you can think of—lifeguard, front desk, catering, sales, you name it,” she says. “So, I really can relate to the issues our staff deals with.”

Cameron employs a leadership model based on mutual respect, insisting her 150 staffers “just call me Susan,” hosting a monthly social gathering with employees, and even playing occasional practical jokes to lighten the mood.

Convinced the hotel’s motto—“a guest when you enter; a friend when you leave”—should be more than wishful thinking, Cameron tries to connect with visitors in that same personal way.

In a broader sense, the general manager is much like those guests. For when it comes to life, Susan Cameron is clearly enjoying her stay.