Augie In Action! Augie In Action! - Ihrsa

The pair agreed to build a
parking deck, but only to the
extent that their costs wouldn’t
exceed the cost of the equivalent
number of surface parking
spaces. As a result, Carpenter
and Ralph added a shared-use
parking deck to their land,
partially funded by DelDot. It
was the beginning of a beautiful
friendship between HAC and
DelDot—one that earned both
parties praise from the public.
“The HAC and Tweed’s Park
project had virtually unanimous
community support,” explains
Carpenter. “The fact that we’d After: club success
taken on the challenge of transforming
a very unattractive landscape
into something that would be beautiful and
accessible to the community made a big difference in
our success.” In addition to building the parking deck,
the club also granted an easement to DelDot to build
a public walking trail that circles the club as it winds
through wooded areas and open space, benefiting
both HAC members and nonmembers.
“ We’ve taken on the challenge of transforming
a very unattractive landscape into something…
beautiful and accessible.
”
The club’s commitment to forging a successful
private/public relationship with DelDot didn’t go
unappreciated by public officials.
“They’ve taken a site that was one of the most
underused and polluted brown fields in the country
and turned it into a world-class facility,” noted New
Castle County Executive Chris Coons. “We, in government,
can only create the opportunity, but it takes
people in the private sector with a vision to make
something like this happen.”
Capitalizing on IHRSA
Of course, creating goodwill and establishing a
healthy relationship with public officials didn’t
guarantee that HAC would generate enough revenue
to sustain a $28-million facility. To pull off that trick,
Carpenter and Ralph knew that they’d need to attract
an enormous cross-section of the community to the
club—as members or visitors—and that such an
undertaking would require them to dig deep into their
collective pool of experience and resources. It was at
this point in the development that “Success by
Association” came to mean more than simply
| IHRSA Report | Success by Association
associating with a partner or public officials—it
meant capitalizing on their IHRSA membership.
HAC’s articulated “Mission and Values,” which are
posted prominently in the club’s foyer, are rooted in
Ralph’s experience with IHRSA. “In my early days as
a club owner, I found that going to IHRSA conventions
and hearing motivational, outside-the-box thinkers
was inspiring, and, for our club, often a call to action,”
he says.
More recently, the importance of establishing a
mission-driven business model for HAC was reinforced
by Ralph’s involvement with the IHRSA Institute.
“I spoke at the 2007 IHRSA Institute about the
importance of building a lasting business culture and,
in preparation for that talk, had the opportunity to
interview some of our industry’s leaders,” notes
Ralph. “Two things immediately struck me during the
interview process. First, how instantly and passionately
each was able to talk about their company’s values.
And, second, the commonality of the themes in their
answers: care, trust, respect, integrity, etc.”
IHRSA conventions also facilitated HAC’s vendorselection
process, says Ralph. In particular, he attributes
its relationship with 3D Art, a Singapore-based
marketing firm that creates three-dimensional
portraits of clubs for presale marketing efforts, to a
chance meeting at a trade show. “We simply wouldn’t
have known about 3D Art if it weren’t for the IHRSA
convention,” he says.
HAC has transcended the public/private divide,
a line that’s often an unnecessary barrier to
commercial development, and has also become an
integrated, significant community asset—one that’s
leveraged IHRSA resources wisely to achieve
“Success by Association.” —|
– Tom Richards, tgr@ihrsa.org
www.ihrsa.org | MARCH 2008 | Club Business International 179