Melissa Green, the newly appointed vice president and area managing director for the Davenport Hotel Collection, has had a career in hospitality that spans 26 years and a half-dozen northeastern and southeastern states. 

Growing up in a large Italian family in Long Island, New York, Green, 42, initially wanted to pursue a career in culinary arts and open her own restaurant. She attended culinary school, and following her parents’ advice to learn the business side of the food industry, earned a bachelor’s degree in food and beverage management from Johnson & Wales University, in Providence, Rhode Island. 

Upon graduating, she was hired by Marriott International Inc. as an assistant banquet manager for the company’s resort in Hanover, New Jersey.

Green grew her career with Marriott International where she eventually became the senior operations manager of food and beverage for one of the company’s large hotels in Memphis. She then moved to a franchise company that operates Marriott brand hotels, White Lodging Services Corp., where she climbed the ladder to her first general manager role. 

In March of 2021, she joined the Davidson Hospitality Group, which is owned by KSL Capital Partners LLC, a private equity company that purchased the Davenport Hotel Collection in December of that year. 

The Davenport Hotel Collection that Green now leads is comprised of five hotels in downtown Spokane, including the Historic Davenport Hotel, the Davenport Tower, the Davenport Lusso, the Davenport Grand, and the Centennial by Davenport Hotels. 

The Journal recently caught up with Green to discuss her career in hospitality, the state of the industry, and what she hopes to accomplish in her new role. 

How did you choose to go from back-of-the-house roles like cooking to more administrative roles? 

Everyone in my family is very food focused. Starting when I was 14, I was working in food service in New York in large Italian catering halls. Ever since I was 3, I would bake with my mom in the kitchen, and that was a very important part of my life growing up. My sister and I actually have the coordinates of our mom’s kitchen where we grew up tattooed on our arms. So after high school, I went to culinary school and did an internship at Disney World and was a banquet captain all throughout college. 

I earned my four-year degree and was fortunate to be recruited by Marriott International right out of college. I think Marriott saw something in me because they decided to put me in the front of the house. I told them I wanted the back of the house, but they offered me the role of assistant banquet manager, and I immediately fell in love with it. As much as I loved the back of the house, I realized, OK, maybe they were right. 

That’s how I stuck it out in the front of the house. Food has always continued to be a passion of mine. My husband went to the same culinary school as me, although not at the same time, but it’s funny that’s how our worlds kind of crossed. 

You’ve done a lot of moving around. Is that typical to climb the ladder in the industry? 

I was with Marriott International for quite a while and was fortunate to have so many amazing experiences. My first mentor at my first property gave me some advice. He said, “I’m going to tell you something that nobody told me when I was younger. They’re going to offer you all these opportunities, and while you’re young and single, take them.” And I said, OK. I was lucky that my parents also said take whatever opportunities come your way. Those are opportunities that I was fortunate enough to be offered, and I took them. 

I know a lot of people who were able to move up without moving. I think that’s one of the unique features that we have here, specifically with the five hotels. We have the ability to move up and not have to relocate. The way hospitality was a couple of years ago was more fluid, where if you wanted to move up quickly, it was easier to move around. But I think you have some unique opportunities here. You don’t have to move. 

What’s the state of the hospitality industry now, and what do you hope to accomplish in your new role? 

As a whole, we are continuing to rebound. After the pandemic, so many industries were impacted significantly. From the recruitment and hiring standpoint, I think we’re finally at about 80% back, which is much better than we were last year and the year before. We’re getting to the point where we can start to bring back a lot of services and experiences. My goal for 2025 is to be all the way back. We’re starting to see the application flow return. I think it’s a really good sign for the future.

From a business perspective, we are seeing groups starting to come back and book for 2026 and 2027, which is fantastic because those future bookings are what slowed us down in 2022, 2023, and 2024. We didn’t see a lot coming on the books for 2024 and 2025. But when you look now, 2026, 2027, and 2028, we do see those coming on the books. It means those companies and associations are looking ahead and investing in their future. That means we can start investing in our future, we know they are coming. 

How have your mentors helped you get to where you are in your career? 

I have two prominent mentors currently. One is my current boss, Paul Eckert, and Tony Goebel, who I have known for about 15 years and recently retired. I speak with him about once a month. 

I absolutely don’t think I would be where I am without my first mentor. He pushed me to try new things and was extremely transparent with me. He was the one who even when I would make mistakes, would walk me through what I did and show me how I could have done it differently. It was an understanding that I took a risk, and it didn’t work out, but let’s try something different next time. He took me under his wing and exposed me to executive-level items before I knew I was ready. He saw something in me before I even saw it.

With my current mentor, Paul, if I call him and say, “Hey I have a crazy idea,” and whether it’s the worst idea in the world, he will allow me to bounce ideas off him and talk it through. I know he always has my back. He called me and asked me if I would relocate here. I know that this is a really big focus for the Davidson Group and the ownership group, and he has the confidence in me to do this role. 

Do you foresee any challenges in your new role? 

There’s always a challenge with change, and every leader is different. I’m very transparent and upfront. The Davenport has 97 managers, so within the first three days that I arrived, I went to human resources and requested an organization chart for every manager. I sent emails to every manager and set up one-on-one meetings with each one of them because I wanted to get to know all of them. I would never remember their names unless I made that personal connection. 

A lot of them wanted to know why I chose to come here. And honestly, when I started to meet the team on my first trip out here when we were house hunting, everybody was so warm and welcoming that I was like, we have to do this. Everything was just so easy out here. It just seemed like everything was supposed to happen the way it was supposed to happen.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.