My name is Michael Hraba. I like hotels.
I was born in Carmel, Monterey Bay into the hotel industry. My folks being hoteliers (which is actually another term for gypsy; credit to Stan Bromley) we quickly moved to another opportunity, with the Chicago Hyatt O’Hare property, not soon after being born. After that it was back to the Bay Area to work in hotels “under the table”, IE too young to be paid and too short to look over the tables… so I basically restocked peanuts in a hotel bar. This took me to school studying communication, philosophy, skepticism, and critical thought. Mostly it was an attempt to figure out how a 6’6″ chap such as myself could learn how not to scare people, whilst looming over them at the front desk at my night job in a hotel.
My offical (and legal) hospitality path started in 1995 during university, where I started down an 11 year road of operations: endless days that ran into nights, split shifts, full weekends of work, sleeping under banquet tables, losing my fingerprints as an expediter, working triples (PM shift, Audit, then the AM shift). For all intensive purposes, I have done every possible thing operationally in a hotel. Then I started using my operational skills to help hotels during pre-opening. I have worked on historic retrofits, green builds, national park projects, wine country projects, tech infrastructure, and more. I now run my own business that does all of the above, with an additional focus on the impacting and ever changing world of social media. I never much cared for the older style of marketing, and am quite interested in these powerful, and young, tools that are giving rise to a powerful new structure of media.
Hospitality, and the hotel industry, is in my blood. I adore what we do, and hope I can spread some of the enthusiasm, knowledge, or just amiable good cheer your way.
I sometimes ramble a bit to, which is while I will curtail this bio. =)
Hotel Build Projects:
Last Project:
Cavallo Point Lodge, San Francisco Bay Area (Sausalito)
Current Projects:
Allison Inn & Spa, Portland Area (Springbrook, Newburg)
Rispin Historic Hotel, Santa Cruz Area (Capitola)
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