Michael Leven: What I’ve Learned From a Lifetime in Lodging

You have always approached your work with a substantial social conscience, especially in the founding of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. How do you explain this?
I faced a lot of discrimination in my early days, trying to get my first job. I couldn’t get into the training program I wanted. I had people make discriminatory comments to me during the course of my sales calls.

I was always sensitive to other people’s discrimination since 1947 when my father took me to a baseball game, and I saw Jackie Robinson play his first game. I was 10 years old at the time in Boston. I had never in my life heard the kind of names they called him. Watching how he was discriminated against by people just yelling at him in the stands—it left a massive impression on me.

That impression ended up going all the way through college, where I broke some dating rules by doing some interracial dating with an Asian woman. I accepted a non-Jewish person into a Jewish fraternity, and we lost our charter. I was always racially in front of the curve.

When I got to Days Inn, the proudest thing in my 53 years was the forming of AAHOA. We started with 12 people, and now there are 12,000 members.

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If there’s a legacy that Mike Leven has had in this business, it’s AAHOA. If they want to put me in the ground and ask, “What did he do as a hospitality person, a business person,” you can say Las Vegas Sands is the greatest financially or Holiday Inn is now 2,200 hotels. Days Inn is now 2,000. But nothing compares, nothing compares with being able—with the help of others—to found the Asian American Hotel Owners Association. It’s truly an American, freedom experience. That’s the legacy I want.

You are 76 years old and could have retired long ago. Yet, here you are, not just working but heading up a major international resort company, among other endeavors. Why? Do you have plans for slowing down?
Well, I do have some plans to slow down. I think the greatest level of work for this company—what I came for—has been somewhat completed. It’s always ongoing. There’s still growth to be had in the future, and I want to help the company get to its next level of development and keep a stable management team if I can, which is not easy.

Slowing down to me will eventually mean just taking some time off, keeping myself in place, staying involved in policy-making and decision-making of the company at the senior level. Although my contract is ending in December, it’s probably likely I will continue on in some capacity where I will be involved for the next couple of years.

I don’t feel the slightest bit tired. I am healthy and my golf game is as good or better than it’s ever been, and I don’t play that much. My wife is happy to support my efforts. She has been around the 53 years I’ve been in the business, and she’s happy I’m doing it, but she doesn’t want me around the house all day, and I don’t want to play golf five days a week.

I like being in the position of a senior adviser. I like helping people, doing some wonderful things with the small foundation I have. I’m scholarshiping a lot of kids, some in Israel, some in the States, most the first generation in their families to go to college.

As long as I have something to contribute, I want to stay in the fight, because it is fight. There are always people who do not want to do the right thing. I want to do the right thing. That’s what it’s going to be.

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14 COMMENTS

  1. Mike Leven’s accomplishments in the hospitality business are extraordinary. Even more extraordinary is that he is one of the most decent, down to earth people you’ll ever meet. I admire him greatly.

  2. I know people who have worked with and for Mr. Leven at Days Inn/Holiday Inn hotels. I know of him through these people; who looked up to him for his management skills, for his expertise in the hospitality industry and just for being a good person and a mentor. When I saw his name on the cover, I was curious to see if this was the same person. And sure it enough, it is.
    Thank you for putting a face to a name and more importantly for bringing his story to us.

  3. Prior to leaving my full time career with Hyatt, Mike took the time to have lunch with me every other month. Chair time with Mike was a crash course in life’s lessons. He imparted great advice and was an excellent sounding board. Now in Savannah and Mike in Las Vegas, I miss our Atlanta lunches. He deserves every bit of praise that he gets.

  4. We look forward to having Mike Leven at AAHOA this year and is being awarded for helping start the organization and is a key individual within the hospitality industry. As there are rock n’ roll gods Mr. Leven is a Hotel God!

  5. More than his hotel accomplishments, he is one of the best human beings you will ever meet, not to mention ,a terrific husband,father and grandfather. He is ethical, kind and cares about people. I do know this first hand as I live with him.xo

    • Hi and agree..I had the pleasure to know your whole family at the Congress Hotel in Chicago/Americana Hotels and and will never forget what I learned from Mike and his team!

      Anthony M. Cerone
      Riegel Mount Vernon Mills

  6. I have known Mike Leven for almost 30 years and had the privilege of working for him 12 of those years. Mike is an inspiration to many people who’s lives he has touched. Mike creates a culture and environment that is second to none. A great father, husband, friend, mentor and patriot! The only thing I can say bad about Mike is he is a Red Sox fan!

  7. Mike was one of the first Executives to see the value in consumer data and gave my then young company the chance to be of service and success followed always for Mike but also my company as we have grown into the premier supplier of consumer travel and hotel use data in the USA. Mike has given a hand up and wise advise to so many. Mike, you are a fantastic person and a great friend from the early days. Thank you, Doug & The D.K. Shifflet & Associates Team.

  8. I have had the honor and privledge to work for Mike Leven on two occasions in the past 38 years. Not only is he a great hotelier, but a great boss, advisor, mentor and friend. I hae learned so much from him, and have tried to apply his principles in all I do. Thank you for everything Mike.

  9. As a young Assistant Professor of Hotel Management at the University of New Orleans, I had an idea about changing the outmoded organizational structure of a hotel and I wrote a paper which explained my ideas. I sent it blind to Mike Leven and he actually read it and made several comments and suggestions. I was pleasantly surprised that he actually took the time – he was President of Days Inn at that time. I am not surprised by all the wonderful comments about him on this forum. He is most admired for his long years of service to the industry which he carried out with such grace.

  10. I worked with Mike in a number of locations, and have known him personally for many years, and found him to be one of the finest human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of being associated with in all aspects of human and business endeavors.
    ……..A GREAT GUY!

  11. When I got out of the Air Force I had no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I went to work as a bartender with Early American Inns. After only a year they were acquired by Dunphy Hotels which is were I first met Mike. He has the ability to see the potential in people that even they don’t know they have. I became F&B director and a year later became GM of the Sheraton in Portsmouth NH. When he went to Americana Hotels I followed him and tried to learn as much as I could from him. He’s truly one of a kind and because of him I had the confidence to start my own management company and DePalma Hotels & Resorts has been thriving for 33 years and I owe it all to Mike. Like Mike one of these days I may start to slow down but never retire.

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