Faces of Gaming: Janet Hawk, Raving Vice President – From rancher to rocker to expert casino consultant

Janet Hawk spent the last 11 years getting to know people one by one as one of the leading trainers and guest-experience educators in the casino industry.

In fact, when asked how many people Janet has trained in her career, she smiles and gives you an astounding number: 10,000.

Now Janet’s incredible story does not start in the casino industry. She has an unlikely origin as a fifth-generation Montanan who grew up on the family ranch “breaking horses and raising cattle.”

When I asked her if she lived the “Yellowstone” life on a ranch, she told me “The filming that was done for that show was about 10 miles from where I grew up. If you watch ‘Yellowstone,’ you see my backyard.”

Then the young rancher studied music in college and became the lead singer for a heavy metal band that played all across the western United States and overseas.

So, Janet Hawk went from raising cattle to belting out heavy metal tunes in a pathway that eventually led to Vice President of Player Development and Guest Experience for Raving Consulting.

Last year alone, Hawk spent 42 weeks on the road spreading the word on profitable player development and harmonious service cultures.

Montana and Wyoming
“My family goes back quite a few years, not only in Montana but in Wyoming. I kind of I take both states as my home.

“Because my grandparents would come capture me and my sister during the summer, I would spend summers down in the Red Desert of Wyoming.

I asked Hawk when she started working on the ranch.

“The minute I could pick up a bucket  When you’re little, you’re either bringing the bucket of grain to an animal, or you’re taking the bucket of milk into the pasteurization room, or you’re bringing a bottle to a bum lamb or a calf, and so yeah, you get broken in quickly.”

Hawk’s mother was a police officer for 30 years and her father eventually followed her into the casino industry.” One of the things that they were really adamant about with both me and my sister is that it doesn’t matter that we’re girls. You can do anything a boy can do.”

“I was out there bucking bales, changing irrigation dams. My sister did the same thing. We raised Appaloosas, which I think are some of the prettiest animals on the planet, and participated in many rodeos and horse shows. One of the things my dad said was don’t let anybody tell you there’s anything you can’t do because you are a female,” she said.

Proactive
I asked Hawk what elements of growing up on a ranch carried to the casino industry.

“A good work ethic and how to overcome obstacles. It helped me immensely to be more proactive because if you’re riding by the seat of your pants with a horse or any kind of cattle, you’re already behind. You’ve got to anticipate their needs and actions. There’s a lot more listening on a ranch than talking,” Hawk recounted.

To get a day job
Hawk majored in music in college and studied opera. “My voice teacher had visions of me being the next Beverly Sills, and she had this thing that I was going to sing opera; but it didn’t speak to my soul.” Hawk joined the heavy metal band Graffiti as the lead singer with her friends who were like brothers. “We played in Las Vegas, we played in Guam, we played in California, Arizona, and all over the western United States,” Hawk said.

In order to get out of a management contract, the band disbanded. “My boyfriend at the time was the guitar player, and I didn’t want him to cut his hair, but somebody needed to get a day job, so we could gig at night. There was an ad in the paper by the Westward Ho that said ‘Keno runners needed no experience necessary’. I didn’t know what a Keno was. I had no idea why they were running, but I knew I didn’t have any experience, so I went in and became a graveyard Keno runner at the Westward Ho on the Las Vegas Strip.”

“It was supposed to be a day job, and it didn’t hit me until 20 years later that this is what a career is. This last summer I started my 40th year in the business,” Hawk related.

I’ll do it!
Hawk moved up through the casino industry. “Anytime somebody needed somebody to do something. I was like, ‘I’ll do it!” I’ll do it! I’ll do it!’ I also learned the importance of cross training. And so, I learned how to pull a slot machine apart and put it back together. And then, next thing I knew, I was the assistant shift manager. Then I was the slot shift manager. Now, I have cross trained in nearly every department.”

Eventually, Hawk moved to the slot department at Ceasar’s Palace, where she began her long career in training. It began when she complained about the almost nonexistent training at the time.

“My training when I went to the slot floor was, ‘Here’s your keys. Here’s your radio. There’s the floor. Knock yourself out’.”

“Me being the shy person that I am, constantly complained about it. I was like, ‘This is Caesar’s Palace. This is the number one casino on the planet, and you guys don’t have a training program. This is not acceptable’.”

“About a year into working there, my director, Steve Sterrett, looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to have a training program.’ And I went, ‘When does it start?’ He says, ‘As soon as you build it.’ I go, ‘I don’t know how to do that.’ He says, ‘I have faith in you. You’ll figure it out’.

“So, they literally cleaned out a closet for me and put a little TV tray desk in there. I created the first training program for Caesars, and that started my training experience. We created the slot handbook. Eventually, that rotated into a slot employee incentive program called Reel People,” Hawk recalled.

Auction
Hawk’s father retired from Frontier Airlines after 20+ years and she encouraged him to join the casino industry. After a stint as the front desk manager at Ceasars, he asked his daughter, “What the heck is it that you do? I think I want to do what you do.’ We went to a government auction and bought two electromechanical slot machines for $99 apiece. I taught him how to pull them apart and put them back together. And he went out to the state line, applied for a job, and his second career took off,” Hawk related.

Colorado, Mississippi and Oklahoma
From Ceasar’s Palace, Hawk moved to Blackhawk, Colorado in 1992 with her bosses Dan Roy and Steve Sterrett, but unfortunately, financing stalled. So, Hawk went to help open the Gilpin Hotel. “We actually ran the very first slot tournament in the state of Colorado.”

Hawk moved on Casino Magic in Biloxi, Mississippi when Hurricane Katrina totally destroyed the property and “Katrina blew me to Oklahoma.” She  joined the Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce in 2005 at their corporate offices, and oversaw the building of Riverwind, and the expansion of WinStar, and created their comp program, their player development program, and was involved with the installation of the ACSC and Agilysys systems. It was also at CNDC that Hawk was able to expand her casino education through University of Nevada Reno and UNLV.

“They didn’t have player development prior to me getting there and didn’t have a comp program. They were giving out comps, but there was no rhyme or reason to it. For instance, an estimated 80% of their comps were going to the poker room.

“I said, ‘Okay, which department makes the most money in the casino?’ And they said, ‘Oh, the electronic games.’ I said, ‘Then that should mirror your comps. The most comps should go to the most play. All comps are based on play.’ Once they understood that, we started with a manual comp process. I trained everybody who had comp approval at all 16 of their properties at the time. We all went through comping training, and with the install of ACSC, we went over to digital comping with a comp bucket and discretionary comps. We worked hand in hand with the Players Club and designed Riverwind Rewards and it was a great learning experience, and where I was introduced to Raving. I was a client first,” she said.

Global Gaming Solutions
After six years, she left the Chickasaw Nation Division of Commerce and moved to Global Gaming Solutions.

“When I stopped working for CNDC, they had Global Gaming Solutions, which was also part of the Chickasaw Nation, and that division went all over the world, helping other casinos. Sometimes it was other tribal casinos. Sometimes it was commercial.

“When I decided to leave CNDC, they brought me over to Global Gaming because they had just purchased Remington Park, and so we were getting ready to do some conversions.”

Raving Consulting
After CNDC Hawk decided to move back to Mississippi again but after 4 years, she decided to get out of the casino industry.  Hawk then received a call from Raving Consulting’s Amy Hergenrother asking if she would be interested in taking her vast experience in training and operations to Raving. “She rang my phone and bothered me until I finally gave in. That was 11 years ago. The best decision I’ve made in my career.”

Hawk facilitates Raving’s player development programs like Raving Elite Player Intelligence that brings analytics, training, and coaching together in one accountable model. Plus, she oversees the Raving Host 360 approach that looks at the full picture: data, guest experience, host activity, and implementation support. The approach combines data-driven player segmentation with targeted offers, relationship management, host, and personalized experiences designed to increase visitation, loyalty, and long-term player value.

For guest services, Hawk coordinates programs like Service Consistency, Guest Recovery, Player Development Fundamentals, Modern Host/PD sales strategy, Player reinvestment and profitability, Call Planning, Player Outreach, and Managing a Host Book of Business.

Boots-on-the-ground girl
Hawk started her first few years gaining a reputation working with “the Illustrious Steve Brown”, who created Raving’s Player Development programs.

“They called me the boots-on-the-ground girl because I have been working in casinos for quite a while, so I brought in knowledge from a system point of view.

“My very first client was route operator Leisure Gaming out of Reno. He  had a bunch of little trucker casinos along I-80 when I joined Raving. He just installed a casino management system and had no idea how to actually utilize it. I was able to come in and help him with his new Konami system. I helped him redesign their rewards program, introduced players cards, doing events, created a direct mail program, and we started doing promotions. I basically functioned as their director of marketing for almost eight years. We saw incredible growth and expanded from 5 properties to 9,” Hawk stated.

Analytics and hunters
“As Vice President of Player Development and Guest Experience for Raving Consulting, my primary focus is designing and installing guest service programs, customizing guest service programs, and designing and implementing customized player development programs. Working hand in hand with our analytics team to find out where casino companies are missing money, and then of course training our hosts to be hunters not huggers.

“With guest service, our primary focus is behavior based. We don’t tell you to say certain things. It’s all in how we make a guest feel. One of the things that I love about the programs we’ve designed here at Raving is that they actually do intertwine. Our guest service training will intertwine with our PD training, intertwine with our PC training and intertwine with our table training. How we make people feel is the foundation. It is so important that everybody’s involved. It all starts with the foundation of great service, internally and externally.”

A 360
“For both, guest service and player development, one of the many programs we offer, we call a 360, which means we’re not building the program for them, we’re helping to guide and facilitate as the property builds their own program according to what their needs are. We customize each program. We never ‘cookie cutter’ our programs. One size does not fit all.”

“And one of the things I’m pretty adamant about is that I make sure that we have front line, back of the house, and management involved in the development. When people feel they have a say, it creates ownership and the program will be more successful.

In her articles for Tribal Gaming and Hospitality magazine, Hawk stresses that data should drive decision-making, but should not replace human reaction in player development. “Hosts are revenue producers, not simply VIP concierges.”

“We have a mantra that we use quite often: The numbers tell us what, but they don’t tell us why. So, in my belief, the analytics are an important part of everything we do. They are our maps that show us where our opportunities are. However, those numbers aren’t always reliable. I think that Al can be a useful tool, but we need to make sure we have boundaries/guardrails on it. Humans are social creatures and AI can’t be the be all and end all,” Hawk said.

A culture not a program
I asked Hawk about her belief that guest service is a culture, not a program.

“It has to be like that. It starts with how we treat our own people. Everything an organization does should reflect their beliefs. That’s part of the culture. We can’t treat our team members poorly and then expect them to deliver exemplary guest service. Humans don’t function that way, Richard Branson said it years ago. ‘If I take care of my people, my people take care of me.’ That’s the culture. That’s what we’re trying to bring in. It’s a caring culture, not only to our guests but to the team. Sprinkle in a heavy dose of fun and that makes the miracles happen.”

Core principals
Hawk’s core principles are that casinos flourish when they stop seeing player development and guest service as separate functions. Everyone is a part of player development and delivering great service. She stresses that casinos should build a culture in which every employee creates genuine relationships, and every employee is treated like a valued team member. She states that every host should know the revenue objective, and that data supports – not replaces – human reactions. “The better a host knows their players, the better experience they can create.”

Janet Hawk returned to Montana after joining Raving where her mother sold the ranch 20 ago. She keeps in touch with the ranch life through hiking and photography while chasing a schedule that keeps her on the road over 40 weeks a year.