Determined to rise above his humble beginnings, Ramon Reyes worked his way up from doorman to general manager of major hotels.
Today, the 44-year-old New Orleans native runs the four-star, 1,067-room Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center in downtown.
“As I tell the people I mentor, it’s never where you start. It’s where you finish,” he said. “And I think that finish is controlled by you.”
Reyes learned the meaning of hospitality as a child. His parents were from the Dominican Republic, where it’s not uncommon for families to have 10 or 12 visitors in their home in a day. Each guest is met with a warm greeting and a freshly brewed cup of coffee, Reyes said.
“That’s the definition of hospitality,” he said. “And I’ve been fortunate to be culturally exposed to hospitality all my life.”
Reyes learned the specifics of how the hospitality industry works in his senior year of high school. A teacher, who would become a lifelong mentor, selected him to be part of his school’s new hospitality, travel and tourism academy.
“This is where I learned soft skills and where I learned to write a résumé, how to dress, how to groom, and even how to do my taxes, to be honest,” he said.
Reyes’ parents moved to New Orleans before he was born. His father worked in oil refineries, and his mother was – and still is – a housekeeper in private homes. Neither parent was fluent in English or able to help him with his homework.
By the time he graduated from high school, Reyes, who speaks English and Spanish, knew he wanted a career in the hospitality industry. But proving that to others took two years.
“Getting a job in hospitality back then was like getting a job at the post office,” he said. “You had to know somebody.”
Reyes was determined to be noticed and began faxing the same five hotels five times a day. Finally, he landed a job as a doorman. The human resources director at what was then the Crowne Plaza in New Orleans jokingly told him she had to hire him. She was running out of paper for her fax machine.
In 1997, Reyes was 19 and, to his knowledge, the youngest hotel doorman in the city of New Orleans.
That job was a door opener for Reyes. He worked with men in their 60s and 70s who had put their children through college on the money they made as doormen and were willing to show him the ropes.
“I looked up to them greatly,” he said. “They formed me into the person I am.”
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
He stayed at the same hotel for 10 and a half years, moving from department to department with the goal of knowing the operation from top to bottom.
One day, he was emboldened enough to approach the hotel’s big boss. He remembers telling the general manager that, though he loved his job, he wanted to “sit in your chair one day.”
“His exact words were: ‘Go for it,’” said Reyes, a married father of three from Johns Creek.
Fifteen years after he donned his doorman’s cap, Reyes became one of New Orleans’ youngest hotel GMs when he took over management of the 202-room The Omni Riverfront Hotel in 2014. Three years later, he moved to the Atlanta area to oversee the 2018 opening of the 264-room Omni Hotel at The Battery, home of the Atlanta Braves.
Along the way, he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and management from the University of New Orleans and his master’s degree online in hospitality and tourism management.
Since last year, he’s run the Omni Atlanta, the largest hotel in the Omni chain. He said he’s in the process of working on giving the hotel a new look and changing its culture.
Reyes still takes time to mentor and to volunteer with a nonprofit that helps Hispanics who are dealing with domestic violence and abuse. He credits his mother for instilling in him the idea of “service to others” that he employs both professionally and personally.
None of Reyes’ successes come as a surprise to Josline Frank, his former teacher and mentor.
“He was a star when he was in high school, and he is a star now,” Frank said. “He worked hard to get where he is today.”
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