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Eric Kingstad is the new CEO of Corvallis Tourism. Last month,just a few weeks into his new job, he sat for a Q-and-A interviewwith Mid-Valley InBusiness. Here’s the full version of theinterview, although it has been edited a bit for clarity.

InBusiness: For starters, what caught your eye about this job inCorvalls?

Kingstad: Well, Corvallis has always intrigued me as acommunity. as I was looking for career paths and opportunities thispast summer, it seemed like a natural step for me to take to comeinto this kind of role. over the last 10 years, I had been involvedwith the Washington County Visitors Association, on their board,through their executive committee. I was chair for two years, pastchair for the last year; I actually spent about six months back in2007 as their interim CEO while they were looking for a new person.that was a great experience. it intrigued me then, and I actuallyhad considered applying for that job back in 2007, but my businessthat I had in Beaverton needed me to stay involved with that, so Idecided not to pursue that at that time. So when this came open, itseemed like this would be a great little community. I’d known John(Hope-Johnstone), my predecessor, for several years and was alwaysimpressed with the job that he had done marketing Corvallis. I feltlike, with him retiring, this would be a good opportunity to breakinto this community and this role.

InBusiness: Tell me about the Beaverton business.

Kingstad: I had … a conference center/events center managementcompany for 16 years that (operated) stand-alone event centers.they were also art centers. … Prior to that, I had worked in thehotel industry for Marriott Hotels for about 13 years. I’m datingmyself here. the business that I had up in Portland, we at one timehad five centers in Portland and Seattle, so we had a smallfamily-owned chain of branded little conference centers. … From1993 to 2009, basically, we had that business going. we werefull-service, catering and we had an arts center. we had a comedyclub going in there. we helped a theater launch, so live theater,concerts, we had the largest art gallery in Portland. … it was aninteresting thing. it gave me a lots of different experience,selling to the group market and selling to that convention market,and selling tickets to events. … So basically, I’ve sold hotelrooms, I’ve sold meeting space and I’ve sold tickets. and marketedall those things in the last 30 years in lots of differentlocations. I think that experience of doing all those things reallyhelped prepare me for this job.

InBusiness: it does seem as if that would be ideal training forthis job.

Kingstad: because the big call to action, I think, for thisorganization is really to sell Corvallis more and more as ameetings destination. and I think the focus over the last few yearshas really been on the leisure side, instead of on the group side,trying to develop some of these group markets. I think that’s allwell and good but, if anything, this current market is proving thevalue of that group business. the hotels really need to have astrong base from which to work, a foundation from which to work sothey can rely on that from year to year. Not that you couldnecessarily have the same numbers on the group side but itcertainly helps to build that foundation. So that’s what my taskand my focus is really going to be over the next couple ofyears.

InBusiness: as we talk about Corvallis as a destination forthose group meetings, are there pieces that you think are missingin that puzzle? what are the things that Corvallis needs to addressto broaden its appeal as a location for some of these groupmeetings?

Kingstad: first and foremost, we have to recognize who we’recompeting with, who our competition is, understand what thedifferences are, what our strengths are and our weaknesses comparedto that competition. I think a missing piece the last four or fiveyears has been having an experienced sales person to helporchestrate that sales process. the challenge with a market likeCorvallis is that we’ve got a fairly limited budget, relativelyspeaking, to the people we’re competing with. When I look at ourcompetition, I just kind of naturally think about Eugene and Salemand Bend and Portland and a lot of those cities and communitieshave much larger marketing budgets. but they don’t have OSU, whichhas beautiful world-class meeting facilities that I think reallyshould be the centerpiece of our marketing campaign. … I thinkwhere we’ve really lacked is having that experienced sales personorchestrate that selling. So it is a fairly complicated sell, whenyou start comparing a university setting like we have to a typicalresort setting or hotel setting. I think it can be appealing tosome groups, not all groups, but it can be a very appealing settingfor conferences for a lot of groups. we just have to be able to getthem to compare apples to apples. … So you need somebody withexperience who’s going to be able to get them down to compare theapples, number one, and to root out who those customers are andwhat their real needs are.

InBusiness: and build relationships with them that we haven’tbeen focusing on over the last few years?

Kingstad: Yes. and the issue we’ve had here is, because of thatlimited budget, we’ve had a little bit of a revolving door in thatsales position over the last four or five years. So my goal is tobe able to find that salesperson who’s going to be a good partnerfor me with my experience that we can then go on as a sales team toreally be able to ramp that up pretty strongly. There are someother things from a mechanical standpoint that we’ve been lacking.There are some database solutions out there that we’re going toinvest in to give us the right kind of tools so that we can beproductive and communicate properly to our customers and to ourshareholders. I’m pretty excited about that. We’re making some goodprogress and I’m ready to probably put the finishing touches on acouple of things here in the next couple of weeks and roll out somemore information about that to our community.

InBusiness: as you’ve been talking with OSU officials, have theybeen pretty positive to work with?

Kingstad: Yes, and that’s to me, that’s our Disneyland. … It’sfunny, because up in Washington County, … the chair of the countycommission, which is kind of the ruling partner up there for thetourism dollars, he’d always say, “Well, we don’t have a Disneylandhere in Washington County.” Well, in Corvallis, we have aDisneyland, and that’s OSU. they generate a lot of business and alot of full-rate travel and a lot of the group business that comesin, either from sporting events that happen or the conferences thatare being sponsored from the world-class and renowned professors.why wouldn’t anybody want to hook their wagon to that rising star?So that’s my thing, because what’s good for OSU is good forCorvallis. in kind of an odd way, I hope that I can make sure thatthe community knows when things are going on at OSU that are goingto impact them, so we’re going to devise some programs that willhelp to make those groups feel more welcome. whether that’sproviding coupons to groups to get them downtown to spend moremoney, that’s easy to do, those are things that we can control toexpose them to that.

InBusiness: you sometimes hear from mid-valley businesses thatOSU is over there on campus in a bubble by itself.

Kingstad: So I’m hoping that I can help to be an agent of changefor that.

InBusiness: and there always will be some town-and-gowntensions.

Kingstad: I’ve heard that phrase before, the town and gownthing. it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. I’m hoping down theroad to maybe get more involvement from OSU on our board here andyou know make it a little more seamless, I guess. and that’s a goodchallenge. I love that campus. It’s just a phenomenal school. Youknow, you’ve got these world-class coaches and professors that youknow are renowned in their fields. We’re hoping to create anambassador program, which I think is already kind of in place withOSU Conference Services, where they’re trying to encourageprofessors to stand up and raise their hand when it comes tohosting conferences in the future. and from what I understand, Ithink that hosting a conference is almost at the same level asbeing published in terms of getting tenure. So we’re hoping todevelop some programs to help make that easier for them. Whetherthat’s flying back with them to another conference to make thepitch, or whatever the resources are to make that happen, hopefullygrease the skids to get more of those conferences. at the sametime, people from the community, there are probably people who workfor the city who could do the same thing. We’ve got so manyaccolades that we’ve got here in Corvallis, there’s probably lotsof people who would be anxious to see how we’re doing all thisgreat stuff. So why not bring that conference in? I remember seeinglots of conferences in Portland where people would come up just tosee the light rail. those are the show-me conferences. show me howyou’re doing that. we could do the same thing here inCorvallis.

InBusiness: do you have smaller benchmarks that you want to tickoff over the next year?

Kingstad: Yes. … We’re going to be doing more … regularcommunication to the community as far as pushing out informationabout what’s happening. in the past, I think we’ve done monthly orquarterly e-newsletters. We’re doing more weekly flashes of what’scoming up and going on in the community and highlighting some ofour stakeholders and maybe special offers that might be out thereand trying to build that database so that we have a higher degreeof visibility. One of the longer-range kind of things that’s in ourstrategic plan is to try to come up with a brand, a Corvallisbrand. I always tell people that we’ve done a really good job atbranding our organization, Corvallis Tourism, but we haven’t reallycome up with a great brand for Corvallis. and you look at some ofthe different things that are used here by the city, by thechamber, you know, it’s kind of, all over the board. and I don’tknow if you can actually ever get everybody working off the samepage.

InBusiness: Well, it is Corvallis.

Kingstad: but one of the things about branding is that it’ssupposed to be able to make a promise, and you have to deliver onthat process. It’s funny, because when I was going through theinterview process, there was … this community meeting, andsomebody asked me about the branding thing, and what’s that goingto look like, what’s that brand going to look like, and I have noidea. because it’s really, the process for going through that is toreally get (the widest) community input as you possibly can andthen you sift that way that down and shake it out to the pointwhere you really get what the essence of Corvallis is and what thebrand is going to be. … (T)hen you go back to the community andyou test that in lots of different ways and then you bring it downagain. So it’s this lengthy process you have to go through togather information and feelings before you really start getting tothe point of coming up with a design. So it was an interestingquestion to deal with there.

InBusiness: One of the interesting things about working withbrand creation is that the brand is in other people’s eyes.

Kingstad: and then everybody owns it, right? That’s what youhave to do, … get to the point where everybody owns it. So Ithink, I kind of just see that as an important step to get thecommunity to become even more visitor-centric than it is, to becomeeven more of a tourism destination without becoming a tourism trap.you talk about the Prosperity that Fits thing, tourism is theperfect industry for that because it kind of lifts everybody’s boatby bringing in more people to spend in shops and restaurantswithout necessarily having to increase the infrastructure toaccommodate the growth. you look at that 2020 plan that the cityhas, with very very conservative growth estimates for population,it’s like the old Tom McCall thing:

InBusiness: welcome to Corvallis. Bring your money.

Kingstad: How long are you staying?

InBusiness: Which raises a question that I asked John a fewmonths ago, in his informal exit interview as he was getting readyto leave the job you’re in now: do you think tourism gets therespect you think it should as an economic segment, or do we stillassociate the jobs with flipping burgers?

Kingstad: I think it’s getting better. I don’t think that itgets the respect it (should). the tourism industry always seems tohave to stand up every once in a while and raise its voice to beheard about what an important sector it is, just in general. Ithink that’s just part of the territory, part of the job, becausepeople do tend to think that. but there are a lot of smallbusinesses that are created in that sector and, as we know, I thinkthe opinion out there about small business is changing, that peopleare seeing how important that is to the economic vitality of theregion. There’s a lot of opportunities (for small businesses to tapinto the tourism market). in some respects, I think it’s a loteasier to break into that as a small business than it is for a lotof other industries. I don’t think it has to be just necessarilyflipping burgers.

InBusiness: When you look at the mid-valley as a whole, arethere tourism opportunities there that we’re not taking fulladvantage of yet?

Kingstad: Yes, especially around the wine industries. It’s oneof the things I’ve thought for years, even being up in WashingtonCounty. I think that there are opportunities for the WillametteValley, for example, to really come together as one entity to beable to really push the Williamette Valley as a wine industry,similar to Napa or Sonoma. because people don’t know about us, andthey don’t care about county lines. and right now, it’s allsegmented, (we’re saying), “Oh, this is the northern WillametteValley, this is the southern Willamette Valley, this is BentonCounty, or this is Washington County.” If those organizations couldcome together somehow, the pinot noir that gets produced here isjust phenomenal wine and people are looking for those varietalsthat we can tout. and more and more, that just ties in so well withthe whole experiential travel and adventure travel that people arelooking for more and more. …

InBusiness: are there things that have surprised you about thejob so far?

Kingstad: I’m really pleased with, I’m really in love withCorvallis, it’s such a great little community. It’s this, we haveour own … micro-market here, kind of like our own littleecosystem. It’s a neat community. the downtown area, with just afew big brand names, it’s nice to see all these independent storesand companies. the level of quality of the restaurants that we haveis neat to see and really makes for a unique experiences fortravelers when they come in. as far as surprises go, not too much.It’s great to see how involved people want to be and how engagedthey are, and with some of these different committee meetings thatI’ve been to, like the Prosperity that Fits and (the work to set upa city) Cultural Commission, which I think is interesting. …Here’s a little thing that we’re doing now too; it’s a communityreport that we’re doing monthly to show all the things that we’reworking on. … For the most part … when you type in Corvallis,Oregon, our Web site comes up first. Our job is really to be kindof an unbiased broker of information for the traveler and for thecommunity about what’s going on. we hope to be as inclusive aspossible on our Web site and try to advocate for the greatestcustomer experience when they get here. It’s not only our job toget them here, but it’s also to get them out spending money whenthey are here, give them things to do. the richest picture that wecan paint of our community, the more desirable it is as a locationto travel. That’ll be another thing that I’ll do in the next year,is to update the Web site. (So the job is) not without its list ofthings to do and challenges.

InBusiness: and you have big shoes to fill.

Kingstad: John did a great job. He’s a great character for thecommunity and he was really on the cutting edge for the socialmedia stuff.

InBusiness: How did you get involved in the travel industry inthe first place? IWas the Marriott job your first job in the travelindustry?

Kingstad: you know, I kind of grew up around it. my first jobwas actually working at a small little summertime resort when I was15 or 16, I think. I was really proud: I was this good-lookingyoung man, kind of tall for my age, I suppose. it was the beginningof may, and the resort was getting ready to open, and maybe it wasthe end of April, the beginning of may, and that’s my first job,they were going to give me a job as a bellman, right? That’s …THE job to have. So I did that for two days, and then guess whathappened? all the college kids showed up, from the University ofMichigan in Ypsilanti, so these people would come for the summer towork at this resort. they looked at me and they went, “Uh-uh,that’s MY job,” and they kind of twisted the arm of the generalmanager. So on the third day, I found myself working inhousekeeping, as a houseboy.

InBusiness: So you had a taste of life at the top.

Kingstad: I did, and then it got pulled out from under me. So Ivowed never to let that happen to me again. So through college, Iworked in lots of different jobs – as a cook, as a busboy, youknow, learning the ropes. When I got out of college, my first jobwas actually working on a much larger resort and then I ended upgoing to work for Marriott in convention services. So it’s kind of(been_ in my blood, I think, from an early age on.

InBusiness: would you agree with the statement that everyoneneeds to work as a short-order cook or as a waiter or waitress atleast for a couple of weeks in their lives.

Kingstad: Yes. Or as a houseboy.