FARGO, North Dakota—Heidi Wilcox realizes her company is in a unique position.
First Call Hospitality, which Wilcox oversees as CEO, owns no hotels. (It’s a third-party management company that operates 13 hotels around the country, encompassing 2,144 rooms.) But the equity firm that owns First Call does.
Wilcox said that can be an interesting tightrope to walk when talking to outside hotel owners about partnering with her business.
“Sometimes (our position) can help,” Wilcox said. “It gives us a chance to show what we bring to investors. But it can hinder us if other owners feel like they won’t be their first priority.”
She said the antidote to that particular problem is just doing what they do as well as it can be done.
“We have to do a good job of showing them that we really do treat them the same,” Wilcox said. “Their return on investment becomes our priority. And we need to be there when they need us. We can get people where they need to be at a moment’s notice, even from Fargo.”
Long in the making
First Call Hospitality has only existed in its current form since 2007, but its roots stretch back more than 40 years.
The company started in 1972 with the birth of Wold Properties, which opened a 310-room Holiday Inn and Convention Center in Fargo that year.
Wold would add new properties and make several twists and turns over the next two decades (including an attempt to start its own hotel chain in the 1980s), Wilcox said, before spinning off a new company, Dakota Hospitality, to develop, build and manage hotels in 1994, focusing largely on brands from Hilton Worldwide Holdings and InterContinental Hotels Group.
By the mid-2000s, the Wold family was looking to exit the hospitality business and decided to sell off its hotel properties, including the management company, to a private equity group led by Latitude Management Real Estate Investors, which would soon take full ownership and revamp it as First Call Hospitality.
Wilcox, who joined the company in 2003 and assumed the position of CEO almost two years ago, said the company’s history informs how management does business.
“We operate our hotels as if FCH owns them, utilizing a hands-on approach,” she said.
Wilcox noted that First Call’s portfolio still includes the two original Wold properties in Fargo: The Holiday Inn Fargo and the Holiday Inn Express West Acres. Most of the other Wold properties have been sold off, but First Call still manages other hotels owned by its parent company.
The new frontier
The company has expanded its horizons beyond the Dakotas.
First Call now manages properties in Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas, along with South Dakota. Wilcox said her company has some aggressive growth plans, with a goal of adding five properties a year. The executive team is targeting the southeast and central United States as places to expand.
“We’ve made good headway,” Wilcox said of the company’s recent growth. “But I’d even like to see a little more accomplished. It’s a seller’s market right now.”
Wilcox said those expansion priorities have shifted a bit in recent years, since the company was once largely focused on areas dependent on oil and gas. She said First Call has reconsidered plans to expand in areas like Houston once that industry became less robust.
But no matter where they’re expanding, Wilcox said the company’s biggest strength is the people behind it, which she says makes First Call more flexible than most management companies.
“I think we’re one of the very few that can manage both full-service and focused-service hotels. We do it well. And that’s because of the economy of talent we have.”
She said that’s a hard strength for any company to maintain.
“The biggest challenge is always finding talent, especially talent that wants to stay in the industry,” Wilcox said. “And with all the (employee-related) federal regulations coming down, it makes it even more difficult to try to facilitate that. It becomes a balancing act.”
Nothing to fear in Fargo
Wilcox, a Brainerd, Minnesota-native who doesn’t shy away from the movie references inherent with having a company headquartered in in Fargo, also wants people to know there is more to her city than many outsiders assume. She said some owners fear getting in and out of Fargo might be an issue, but she said Fargo is actually a pretty efficient travel hub.
“People travel in and out of Fargo like you would not believe,” Wilcox said. “My husband’s family is from a farming community outside of Fargo, and that entire group would pick up and travel to Phoenix every year. We’re more cosmopolitan than people think.”