<<<*****
I remember sitting in on a meeting at the old
Renaissance
Hotel building (Now defunct) on
North Tryon
Street in
Uptown Charlotte that introduced
Mr. Tennant in
1992. He appeared to be
un-daunted and un-phased about his new challenge in the
Queen
City. He and his team at the bureau went on to do great things for
our city like lure the
Lott
Carey Convention and the
Progressive National Baptist
Convention in
1995 (
President
Clinton spoke), the
NAACP Convention in
1996, as well as the
Square Dancers
Convention in
1998, and the
National
Black Baptist Convention in
2001 which is the
largest convention in
Charlotte history to date. For that
I am truly appreciative because my tour company –
Queen City Tours® – was
able to supply area tours to each and every convention. I also remember
being treated in a most respectful and humane manner when I had concerns
about issues relating to business leads.
Mr. Tennant would
actually allow me to address him and his key staff members in an open and
respectful forum to discuss the matters at hand with mutual respect.
In fact, I still have a
very
powerful complimentary letter that he wrote back in
May of
1998. I have used that letter over
and over again to obtain new business. Unfortunately, the current
Charlotte administration has fallen way short of this
level of professionalism. As such, I was very sad upon hearing of his
untimely departure in
2003.
<<<*****
Today,
Melvin, who holds a
BS Degree in
Managerial Studies from
Rice University
in
Houston, Texas, is still at it but in a different
part of the country still doing his thing as the
President
and
CEO of
Meet Minneapolis. He was
appointed in
2008 and oversees a staff of
50
associates/team members and a
$9 million-dollar budget. His
official duties and responsibilities include the executive management of
his team as well as the official marketing of the city of
Minneapolis, MN. In his position there he and his team
have managed to keep his organization a float during these tough times by
convincing local corporations like
Target,
Best
Buy, and
3M, to hold their meetings in town as
opposed to other cities. He has also directed his marketing team to beef up
their local leisure marketing as well as continue to promote
Minneapolis as a destination to their international
markets like
Scandinavia/Europe and
Mexico which they offer non-stop flights. His immediate
decision-making has resulted in repairing a sharp decline in hotel stays
starting in the fall of
2008 (The official start of the
current recession) to an upturn of approximately
12% today.
favorite part of his job is
when he actually gets to meet their customers face to face. He really
enjoys personally being in front of customers as well as assisting his
sales force in influencing groups to visit and/or hold their meetings and
conventions in his city. On the flip side, he is not too keen on all of
paperwork and administrative stuff that is required in his position as
executive and chief but realizes that it is a necessary evil that comes
with the job. When asked about the overall representation of
African-Americans in management positions within the
travel and tourism industry, he agrees with both
Mike Gunn of
Visit Birmingham and
Dianne Brice of
Visit Winston-Salem who would like to see far more
representation. This is despite the fact as
Melvin puts it
that current and past
African-Americans are and have done
well in the industry and have indeed prospered; he goes a step further and
states that there are many, many folks of color that should be considered
for top level management positions within the industry that have earned the
look. According to
Black Meetings and Tourism Magazine
(
April/May 2009), there are nearly
500
CVB’s throughout the
U.S. and only seven
are headed up by an
African-American executive to
include
Washington, DC;
Detroit, MI;
Jackson, MI;
Macon, GA; and
Minneapolis, MN (
Tennant). That
calculates into a parsley
1.4% representation while the nation is
approximately
12.9% African-American.
Source:
US Census Bureau, 2009.
When
asked about his physical fitness regimen which includes running/jogging,
Melvin agrees that he does not run as much and as far as
he used to in his
30's, but now in his early
50’s
he also enjoys hitting the gym. He is also ecstatic and very proud of his
youngest daughter’s (
Melanie) eminent graduation
from
Prairie View A&M University -- in
Prairie
View, Texas – with a bachelor’s degree in business
management/marketing. This school is one of our remaining
HBCU’s (
Historically Black
College/University). He is also proud that she has served as an
intern for the
WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx in sports
management. Perhaps she may be the next
Arli$$ Michaels; a
sports super-agent TV show character from
1996 –
2002.
Mr. Tennant is a
Certified
Association Executive which he obtained while in
Charlotte from the
American Society of Association
Executives. It is a broad-based curriculum which needs to be
updated every three years. He has also taken continuing education courses
at
Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, and is currently working on a
BA in
Christian Leadership.
Although now firmly entrenched in
Minneapolis,
Melvin still holds fond memories of his time here in the
Queen City; especially the fact that his youngest daughter
(
Melanie) grew up here and that they were around to see
the inauguration of the
NFL Carolina Panthers in
1993 and the new
NBA Charlotte Bobcats
(
2003) now majority owned by
Mr. Michael
Jordan. Things got done fairly efficiently there, he stated, and
he is very happy to have been a part of the process of introducing
Charlotte to the national spotlight.
“My
experience there made it possible for me to do the things that I now
do,” says
Tennant. And to demonstrate his true
sportsmanship, he has no hard feelings about the
DNC
(
Democratic National Convention) deciding to visit
Charlotte over
Minneapolis in early
September 2012. We fought hard and gave it our best shot
he said.
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