~ IN THE NEWS ~

Groveland Innkeeper Leads State Association
By TERESA CHEBUHAR The Union Democrat

It’s a David and Goliath story.

Groveland innkeeper Peggy Mosley became the chairwoman of the California Hotel & Lodging Association this afternoon (Tuesday, December 4) at a luncheon in San Francisco. She officially takes office Jan. 1 and succeeds Tony Bruno, vice president and general manager of Disneyland Resort Hotels.

It is the largest state association representing the hotel, motel and innkeepers, and has 1,800 members representing 175,000 guest rooms, according to Jim Abrams, association president and chief executive officer. It is also the largest state trade association representing the lodging industry in the country and is affiliated with the American Hotel & Lodging Association.

Mosley has been a member of state lodging association since 1994 and has held various leadership roles. She is the fourth woman in the last 10 years to head the organization.

She’s succinct about the objective of her term. “My goal is to ultimately see one voice speak in the state of California,” she said referring to organizations which represent the lodging industry. “A single voice concept is incredibly powerful.”

She added that she doesn’t expect this to happen during her one-year term but she’s seeing movement in that direction.

There are four major organizations representing California lodging industries. They are the California Hotel & Lodging Association, California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns, California Lodging Industry Association and Asian American Hotel Owners Association. The latter is a national organization with a state chapter.

Last spring California Hotel & Lodging Association and California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns partnered and are now housed in the California Hotel & Lodging Association offices in Sacramento.

“I want to create opportunities for all the membership to provide opportunities for them to grow their businesses,” Mosley said referring to the bed and breakfast association members.

She has a long legislative agenda, both in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento. On it are the check card issue, immigration and tourism at a national level.

The check card issue, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, is federal legislation, sought by unions, to allow workers who have signed cards saying they are interested in joining a union to form a union without the need of a secret ballot.

Immigration is a large issue within the industry, Mosley said. “We have a labor puddle, not a labor pool,” she said. She favors finding solutions to the immigration slowdown following 9/11 as a result of more stringent immigration policies.

In addition, Mosley favors “tourism at a national level. We need to have a national tourism agency,” she said. She favors federal funding to support a national agency whose goal is to continue to reinvigorate the travel industry following 9/11.

Her state legislative agenda includes health care and minimum wage issues.

Within the association itself, she plans to discuss with the board the possibility of re-organizing that body. She favors choosing board members from committees. “This kind of involvement will strengthen the organization,” Mosley said.

Additionally, she wants the organization to have “greater contact with individual members.” One way she believes that can be accomplished is by assigning a mentor member to new members to provide information and guidance about the organization’s benefits of membership.

She said she really wants to see those in the California lodging industry speak with one voice and work much more closely together. Mosley also said she wants to ensure that California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns members are “nurtured and cared for” within California Hotel & Lodging Association.

“I am one of them,” she said referring to her ownership of a small hotel. Although California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns is in a partnership with California Hotel & Lodging Association, Mosley said California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns maintains its own identity, has its own Web site and its own conferences.

The advantage is that California Association of Bed & Breakfast Inns members now have the expertise of the best hospitality legal and lobbyist minds, she explained.

“It’s totally exciting times. After 9/11 we were devastated and it took a long time for the lodging industry to come back. It’s doing extremely well,” she said.

“The participation and camaraderie of all of us working together makes it even better. There are incredible benefits for every size property in the state from the smallest to the largest.”

Mosley and her husband, Grover, purchased The Groveland Hotel in 1990 in a foreclosure sale. It is a 17-room, boutique hotel built in 1849 and on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We had no idea what a historic building this was,” Mosley said pointing to the casement windows. “This is a Monterey Colonial,” she said, “a copy of the Thomas Larkin House in Monterey distinguished by a wrap-around veranda, mental roof and central staircase. The hotel was built to house executives from San Francisco here to build Hetch Hetchy Dam.”

She displayed a portion of the original adobe masonry bearing wall. The Groveland Hotel is believed to be the only structure of the Monterey Colonial style in the Sierra, Mosley added.

Fellow foothills innkeepers are agog with Mosley.

“She’s amazing. She’s a legend in her own time,” said Shirley Sarno, president of the Historic Sonora Chamber of Commerce, president of the Tuolumne County Visitors Bureau Board of Directors and a fellow innkeeper. “I don’t know how she runs a hotel and is an involved as she is, but she’s a legend.”

Lynn Upthagrove, proprietor of the Hotel Charlotte in Groveland, agreed. “I think it’s brilliant that we have someone out there representing the small innkeepers. One of the things she does really, really well and seems to enjoy, is the political outreach,” Upthagrove said of Mosley.

“Peggy is a rare individual because she has a business background in large corporations and then she developed a passion for the lodging industry,” Abrams of the California Hotel & Lodging Association said. “She really understands the owner-operator point of view.”

Contact Teresa Chebuhar at editor@uniondemocrat.com or 588-4580.

( Article and photograph reprinted with permission of the Union Democrat )