Name: Ryan Jordan
Position: Churchill Downs Racetrack GM
Where I’m from: High Point, N.C.
Where I call home: Louisville
Focusing on right now: A little bit of everything with the Kentucky Derby being just a few days away. It’s a lot of the last-minute details with making sure that we have the venue ready. It comes down to making sure the place is clean and ready to open the doors.
Best advice: Organizing large sporting events in large venues, I’ve learned that you need to surround yourself with smart people. It takes so many people to put on these large events that it’s impossible to be in so many places at one time. It’s important to build a good team, a team that’s passionate about putting on a world-class event.
Exec I admire: At the PGA I worked for PGA of America Chief Championship Officer KERRY HAIGH, and here at Churchill Downs, I’ve worked for the late Churchill Downs Inc. exec STEVE SEXTON and Churchill Downs Inc. Senior VP & Track President KEVIN FLANERY. But if I look outside our industry, I look at Walt Disney World and restaurants like Chick-Fil-A and Texas Roadhouse. I look at how they put the customer first and make sure they have a great experience and feel welcome. I try to take a little bit of what they do and apply it with what we do at Churchill Downs.
A must for a new hire: Be willing to work hard and be passionate about what you’re doing. You have to be willing to do anything you can to learn all aspects of business. A lot of people come in and they know what they want to do and they only want to do that one thing. But someone who’s willing to take on new challenges and learn other parts of the business and become more well-rounded, that’s important as people want to grow in their careers.
Book shelf: I’ve got two young kids so I’m reading a lot of kids books these days. However, I did pick up “IT’S MY PLEASURE,” the Chick-Fil-A hospitality culture book. It was a really good book talking about what businesses are able to do and how they’re able to build loyal customers and create great experiences.
First thing in the morning: My two kids and my dog who is barking to be let outside are usually the immediate things. Outside of that it’s probably a quick shower and check the email to make sure I didn’t miss anything overnight.
Talking tech: VR and augmented reality are things that will be interesting to follow to see how it plays out and can be used to supplement and aid the guest experience at Churchill Downs. One of the things is, how technology can be used to improve the experience and not so much how technology is the experience.
Food for thought: As a Carolina guy I am a Carolina barbecue fan. So, I look for some smoked barbecue with Carolina sauce, vinegar-based, not ketchup-based. I’d like to pretend that I can cook my own barbecue, so I try to smoke some pork on the big green egg in the backyard.
How I unwind: If I ever get enough time, I enjoy playing golf. I grew up playing golf after my dad got me into it at a young age. I grew up playing with friends, and now my wife and our parents play so we try and get on the golf course when we can.
Day in the life: At this time of the year, most of our planned meetings and all of our staffing plans and expenses are locked in. So now it’s just dealing with issues as they arrive and trying to help solve problems that may have popped up in the last minute. Whether those be with our parking and traffic plan, operation and ticketing team or just dealing with customer issues we just try to make sure that all the resources are allocated and everyone has what they need to make sure our customers have what they are going to need.
