NATIONAL REPORT—Whether it’s celebrating an anniversary, receiving an award, earning a certification, debuting a new product or expanding the business, hotel companies and vendors achieve new milestones on a daily basis. Here’s a look at recent accomplishments:
Dometic Introduces Minibar with UPOE Capabilities
Dometic has introduced the first universal power over ethernet (UPOE) Minibar. The company’s DM50 is now UPOE enabled, offering more options for properties working with UPOE systems.
The Marriott Sinclair Hotel in Fort Worth, TX is the first hotel in the world to include this Dometic DM50 UPOE minibar in their newly renovated hotel. By incorporating UPOE products, such as the Dometic DM50 UPOE minibar, the hotel will save significantly on operational expenses—up to 25% savings on their energy bill due to the lower energy consumption of smarter devices. In addition to the monthly savings, they realized significant savings on the renovation costs of the hotel by utilizing UPOE components.
HotelSigns.com Launches 3rd Annual Charity Donation Event
HotelSigns.com, a division of Intersign Corporation, has launched its 3rd annual charity donation event.
The event is open to the public and everyone is invited to visit www.hotelsigns.com/vote-charity-2019 and cast their vote—once per day—for one of this year’s five nominated charities. The voting period ends on 12/18/2019 at 11:59 P.M. EST, with the charity gathering the most votes receiving a $5,000 donation from Intersign Corporation—with the winner to be announced in January.
This year’s nominees are:
Prevent Blindness: Founded in 1908, Prevent Blindness is the nation’s oldest, volunteer eye health and safety organization dedicated to fighting blindness and saving sight. Focused on promoting a continuum of vision care, Prevent Blindness touches the lives of millions of people each year.
National Pediatric Cancer Foundation: More than 95% of childhood cancer survivors have significant life-long health issues due to toxic treatment. Yet, only 4% of government research funding supports pediatric cancer. The NPCF is dedicated to researching less toxic, more effective treatments with the goal of eliminating childhood cancer.
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) is the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to fighting blood cancer. The mission of LLS is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.
Wounded Warrior Project: The mission of Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) is to honor and empower Wounded Warriors. Its vision is to foster the most successful, well-adjusted generation of wounded service members in our nation’s history.
HealthWell Foundation: Provides financial assistance to underinsured Americans living with chronic and life-altering conditions, such as cancer, ALS, and Hepatitis C. HealthWell offers grants that provide a financial lifeline to adults and children who desperately need critical medical treatments, but can’t afford them.
Riegel Linen Restructures
The management team of the Riegel Consumer Products Division of Mount Vernon Mills Inc. (MVM) has partnered with Lion Equity Partners to carve out the business from MVM and stand alone as a new entity, Riegel Linen LLC.
Riegel Linen is an importer, manufacturer and supplier of tablecloths, napkins, sheets, towels, bedding and other linens for hotels, restaurants, linen suppliers, retailers and healthcare customers. Riegel is headquartered in Aiken, SC, and operates a manufacturing facility in McCormick, SC, and a network of salespeople and warehouses strategically located across the U.S.
Bill Josey, president of the Riegel division and a 35-year veteran at MVM, was named CEO of Riegel as part of the transition.
“Riegel is a premier brand that has been associated with quality textiles since the mid-1800s,” Josey said. “This partnership will enable us to take advantage of growth opportunities in the markets we serve as well as explore new markets and product offerings.
“Mount Vernon Mills has been a great owner and remains a great American textile company,” he added. “We are excited about this entrepreneurial opportunity, which will make for a more robust manufacturing, sourcing and distribution solution for our customers.”
Riegel, VP of Sales and Marketing Chris Gowdy said, “Our customers will continue to enjoy working with the same great people on our team and getting the quality products, innovations and first-class service that have made Riegel the industry leader.”
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
TraknProtect Launches Educational Series
TraknProtect has launched a specially developed educational series on staff safety legislation, compliance and implementation. The series kicked off with the premiere of TrakCast, a new podcast dedicated to educating the industry on advances in hospitality technology.
Hosted by TraknProtect’s Monica Newsome, TrakCast’s “Safety Button Series” will include regular updates on staff safety legislation that is rapidly sweeping the country. In the inaugural episode, Newsome interviewed Parminder Batra, TraknProtect’s CEO on New Jersey’s landmark legislation requiring all hotels in the state to implement a staff safety alert solution by December 2019. With the upcoming deadlines that hotels face for compliance, Batra outlined best practices for hoteliers that will allow them to deploy a solution that ensures the most advanced location-based security protocol and adequately protects them from liability and the potential legal consequences of non-compliance.
In addition to the launch of the TrakCast podcast, the company is also planning a series of interactive webinars on the topic.
“As a pioneer of safety button technology for the industry, we feel a strong responsibility to educate hoteliers on their available options,” said Batra. “As more and more cities and states begin to propose and endorse legislation that requires hotels to implement a staff safety solution, we will continue to develop and deploy educational resources that are intended to help hoteliers understand how to get ahead of the curve and mitigate the inherent risks.”
The TraknProtect staff safety platform consists of a series of hubs that are strategically placed around the property. These hubs are designed to interface directly with hotel staff safety buttons (panic buttons) and inventory tracking equipment. Using cloud-based geo-location technology, the system triangulates the exact location of employees in real time whenever a staff safety alert button is activated. The company’s intuitive software then sends immediate signals from active staff safety alert buttons to the appropriate personnel, based on their location or through user activation, which can then be received via desktop, SMS, email, or phone calls. The solution works similarly to locate trackable equipment, such as food service trays and other valuable hotel inventory.
All of these functions are accessed using TraknProtect’s simple dashboard, which can track real-time analytics on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. The platform has been designed as a holistic way to provide security to the most vulnerable elements of a hotel’s operations—its employees—and it does so by leveraging a property’s existing WiFi and devices. With no additional infrastructure or wiring necessary, hotels can access the TraknProtect platform and provide immediate security to their employees.
Nordis Technologies Names Chief Information Officer
Nordis Technologies has added Charles Grau as its chief information officer.
In this role, Grau leads development of the company’s technologies, including its flagship CCM platform Expresso and product suite, and manages Nordis’ information technology infrastructure, support services, and IT and physical security.
Before joining Nordis, Grau was CIO for United Data Technology. He previously served as VP of IT for AeroTurbine and held CIO-level positions at other companies. He started his career in technology consulting and outsourcing, including for EDS.
