OVERLAND PARK, KAN.—Joe Andrick, general manager of the Overland Park Residence Inn by Marriott, has been named Residence Inn General Manager of the Year for 2011 by Marriott International, Inc. The hotel is managed by True North Hotel Group.
Andrick won the award among his peer group of 611 Residence Inn general managers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and Costa Rica.
“My intuition told me that Joe Andrick was one to watch when I first interviewed him in the early 1990s, and my instinct keeps proving itself over and over,” said Lew Wiens, president of True North Hotel Group. “His approach is that you do the right thing, and then you do it again. That philosophy prevailed, and successfully so, during one of the most challenging economic years in our lifetime.”
A long-time leader in the greater Kansas City Area, Andrick was named Hotelier of the Year by the Kansas City Hotel & Lodging Association in 2009. In 2010, he received the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association’s prestigious Pistilli Service Excellence Award for “consistently providing exemplary service, leadership and professionalism while taking care of our visitors.”
Commitment to Green Practices
Andrick is known for his “green” efforts which took root while, as general manager at the Residence Inn Kansas City Plaza, he volunteered as the first small business to say “yes” to green. His practice-what-you-preach initiative manifested in a light bulb change-out project with The William Jewell College Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team, which had chosen the project as part of the Sam’s Club Environmental Sustainability Challenge.
In 2011, as chair of the Kansas City Marriott Business Council’s Green Committee, Andrick coordinated an effort among the State of Kansas Department of Health, Kansas State University and the EPA to develop a state-wide Green Certification Program for hotels that will be administrated by the Kansas Restaurant and Hospitality Association. He is also coordinating a Green Training Class program for Kansas State University that will be administered to members of the Kansas City Hotel Association.
True North Hotel Group, headquartered in Overland Park and owned by True North Family Trust and Richard Merkel, is a hotel management and development company with 20 hotels currently open and five more under construction or in the pipeline. True North’s portfolio includes extended stay and select-service hotels within the Marriott, Hilton, Westin and Holiday Inn brands.
Go to the True North Hotel Group.
