Experience Grand Rapids announced this summer that its longtime president and CEO, Doug Small, will retire next year after 45 years in the tourism industry. Small has been with the Michigan destination marketing organization (DMO) since 2008 and plans to make his well-earned exit next June.
The DMO pro began his career in his home Buckeye State. Back in 1982, Small’s first foray into tourism was at the former Sheraton Westgate Inn in Toledo, Ohio, where he became banquet manager after graduating from the now-closed Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan, with a degree in hotel, restaurant, and institutional management. “I managed 20 waiters, waitresses, and bartenders,” he says. “They had a gentleman who was very, very talented that had some personal issues he had to deal with, so they needed somebody to help hold the fort down. While I was holding the fort down, it turned into a decent enough gig—it kick-started my career.”
Small went on to hold DMO leadership roles in Ohio, California, New York, and Colorado before coming to Experience Grand Rapids nearly 20 years ago for what he calls, “the best stop of my tour.” Over the past two decades, he spearheaded the organization’s rebranding, helped set hotel-room revenue records almost every year since 2010 (minus 2020 and 2021), and fostered a positive and healthy workplace culture, among many other highlights. Small adds, “The confidence of our stakeholder base, which is primarily made up of the hotel community, I think is as good as ever.”
Does Small have big plans in the works for his last year as president and CEO? You bet he does. “I think anybody would tell you, who knows me well enough, ‘Doug Small doesn’t sit still,’” he says. “I don’t know what cruise control is. … So, it’s full speed ahead for me.”
He says, in his last year, he will continue to work toward Experience Grand Rapids’ overall business development plan, create a development plan for next year, aim to set another hotel revenue record, and further one big goal that has been on Small’s agenda since 2016 but was “put on ice” during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic: to build an additional convention hotel in Grand Rapids. “I’m going to do everything I can to at least get [the project] to the point where the Grand Rapids-Kent County Convention/Arena Authority is ready to vote on whether they’re going forward with it or not,” he says. “That is something out there I would love to see accomplished.”
For a go-getter like Small, the slower pace of retirement might be the biggest challenge he’s faced. “I’m just going to take a deep breath, sit back, and see what comes of it,” Small says. “My wife will tell you I struggle to relax, but I’m going to try to find a way and not think about what’s next and, instead, think about what’s now.”
Small will remain in the president and CEO role through the Experience Grand Rapids centennial celebration next June and will assist with the leadership transition. “It’s been an absolute pleasure and an honor to represent the community I chose to live in each day,” he says. “I’m going to miss that. Whoever takes this role is going to have that same feeling of energy that they get to do the same, and I wish them the best.”
