When Thom Geshay looks back at the COVID-19 pandemic and thinks about the immediate and historic downturn in travel it caused, he's thankful for a lot of things. The thing he's most thankful for is a simple one: That we're no longer in the deepest depths of the crisis.
"I'm just thankful that we're looking at this through the rearview mirror at this point, and we're not still in the thick of it," he said. "It is always great, and more fun, to look back."
But the well of thankfulness for Geshay, president and CEO of Davidson Hospitality Group, doesn't stop there. While speaking with Hotel News Now for the ongoing Pandemic Reflections series, he said looking back he's blown away by how forgiving and loving his family was while he was consumed with work.
"Gosh, there are a whole lot more things to be thankful for than feel bad for," he said. "I'll start with my family. You know, when this whole thing went down, the leadership team here at Davidson, we did a call every day at 7:30 in the morning. We got on the phone every day, and the first thing we did was we talked and went through what happened yesterday. What did we learn today? ... What do we do? How do we communicate with owners?"
He said that stress of just trying to figure out how to move forward at that point was obvious, and he's grateful to have people around him who were willing to be empathetic.
"Clearly, I was under a bit of stress," Geshay said. "I wasn't sure how the company would work out, wasn't sure what any day would hold. So I'm sure I wasn't at my best all the time. They understood that, and they supported that. And they were really understanding of the fact that I had to work 20 hours a day, seven days a week. They knew I was trying to make good, solid decisions for the family and the company."
For our full conversation with Davidson's Thom Geshay, listen to the audio below.