Summary

In this episode, Nick and Don catch-up with Ken Rohman, Chief Marketing Officer for Wind Creek Hospitality. Learn about the Poarch Creek tribe's growth and expansion into commercial markets, its guest-driven service culture, the Wind Creek Rewards loyalty program, and the licensing, construction, positioning, opening, and early successes of the group's newest resort, Wind Creek Chicago Southland. Also in this episode, Don hangs-up his spurs.

Transcript

Nick Hogan:

Morning, Don. How are things today in Southern Illinois?

Don Retzlaff:

Morning, Nick. It’s a beautiful late winter day. About 65 degrees today, so can’t beat that for February.

Nick Hogan:

Right on.

Don Retzlaff:

How’s things in the Netherlands today?

Nick Hogan:

I don’t know if you can see behind me, but it’s a beautiful sunny day. I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s too weird for February.

Don Retzlaff:

Sunshine in the Netherlands? That never happens.

Nick Hogan:

Yeah, it doesn’t happens. Don, great to be back on the mic with you here today. A quick apology to the listeners for our pause there over the Christmas holiday, we took a bit of a break. Then we had four, count them, four separate reschedules on our January show. As if that wasn’t enough heartache, one of us had the nerve to actually retire during this whole scramble. To those who missed last month’s press release, Don officially hung up his spurs on January 1st of this year. He’ll be doing some projects with us moving forward, but other than that, he’s a free man.

Don, we’re going to need a download on what you’ve been up to. But I guess before we go there, a little anecdote for the listeners. I guess it was last week, I sent Don a text about scheduling this show and just asking how everything was going generally. Two minutes later my phone dings, and what do I see? A photograph of a $500 win on Huff N’ Puff Money Mansion. I looked at that and my first thought, Don, was right on time. Don, retired life, how’s it been treating you so far?

Don Retzlaff:

It’s been great so far. We decided to spend New Year’s in Vegas, so that was fun. That’s celebrating my birthday, my retirement with 400,000 of my closest friends on the strip. That was fun. Then went to Mexico for the first time, spent eight days on a Mexican cruise, and hit all the big ports of call and the Mexican Riviera and had a blast down there. The cities were wonderful, the people were great. Other than that, it’s been a whirlwind for the last eight weeks so far, so having a blast.

Nick Hogan:

Okay. Cool. You have some more travel on the horizon here?

Don Retzlaff:

Do. We’ve got a couple more trips planned out. We’re trying to do something every other month.

Nick Hogan:

Okay. Cool. Well, I’ll have my phone in hand waiting for some more Huff N’ Puff photos. I’m afraid I have a bit of some bummer news for our listeners in that this month’s episode is going to be Don’s final episode. I tried everything short of a shotgun to keep him on here, but he assured me he has no desire to be a podcaster when he grows up. I’m lining up some guest hosts who will be filling in for a while while we get our new co-host up to speed, but that’s where we are.

Don, just a brief pause to tell you your absence, it’s really felt here. We all miss you horribly, and you’re an incredible mentor to so many people here. I certainly include myself in that. You had a huge impact on our offerings and our culture. Honestly, we’re just so much better as a result. We’re thankful we still get to talk to you and see you, but moving from the daily interactions to ad hoc interactions has certainly been an adjustment, and we really miss having you in the mix here.

Don Retzlaff:

Well, you’re very kind, Nick. I appreciate it. I appreciate you and everybody from ReelMetrics reaching out and plus all our different clients and all the people from the industry over the last 30 years. Gotten some really neat notes, some fun notes, and brought back a lot of neat memories. The time was right and I get to enjoy retirement while I can still walk around and do things. It’s pretty cool to be able to retire in your 60s.

Nick Hogan:

When you put your announcement up on LinkedIn, I don’t recall who made the crack, but somebody was like, “Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s just going to be a few months, and then we’re going to see you run around the floor like a kid in a candy store.”

Don Retzlaff:

I know who that was. That was an old friend, Craig Robinson, who actually just retired as well.

Nick Hogan:

Okay. Okay. It was cool. Now Don, we did have a few listener questions but they’ve grown a bit stale, so I think we’ll skip that bit for this month. However, for next month, listeners, you know the drill. If you have questions, shoot them to us at reelcast@reelmetrics.com. Again, that’s at reelcast@reelmetrics.com. Don, time for today’s guest. This gentleman, a Chicago native originally, Don, is an alumnus of both Baylor and Tulane Universities and has had a long and distinguished marketing career having served in marketing leadership roles with Outboard Marine Corporation, Boats.com, Bass Pro Shops, the Avala Marketing Group, and Archer Malmo. These days he serves as a chief marketing officer for Wind Creek Hospitality, which in early November of last year opened its new $600 million Chicagoland resort, Wind Creek Chicago Southland. I’m speaking of course about Mr. Ken Rohman. Ken, how are things with you today?

Ken Rohman:

So far so good, but it’s early. We’ll see how it unfolds.

Nick Hogan:

All right. Very good. Ken, I thought we could just start off just have you tell us a bit about yourself, your background and the path that led you to your present role there at Wind Creek?

Ken Rohman:

You hit a lot of the highlights in the introduction. I’ve worked in a lot of different industries doing a lot of different things, and I was very happy doing my own thing running an