Tyler Staten
Concierge Team Lead and Assistant Front Office Manager, The Scott Resort & Spa Thank goodness for homework. “I was studying business at Mesa Community College with aspirations to be an entrepreneur when I was ‘saddled’ with a class project that would change my life,” says Valley native Tyler Staten. The project required Staten to design, staff and open a fictional hotel from scratch. “Every second of what was supposed to be a taxing assignment – from deciding how many pieces of furniture to put in each room to developing the hotel’s signature guest experiences – was pure bliss,” recalls Staten, who got into the hotel industry after the project, taking a job at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in 2015. In 2016, he moved over to Firesky Resort (now The Scott Resort & Spa) as a front desk supervisor, eventually also taking on the concierge role. “The hotel had just been acquired by Classic Hotels, and plans were put into motion soon after on an $18 million renovation and its ultimate transformation into The Scott,” Staten says. “Being at the forefront of the transformation was like watching that school project come to life.” Over the past 2 1/2 years, Staten has been watching each phase of the renovation come together firsthand, setting up surprise birthday celebrations, proposals and excursions daily along the way. “One of my best memories was helping a regular guest, whose family visited this hotel in all of its iterations for decades, to locate a special blanket,” Staten says. “That might sound odd, but her family loved the older blankets the hotel used to have in the rooms, so I scoured every nook and cranny and found her one for posterity.” Today, the evolution of the resort has reached its impressive completion, and Staten serves as both the concierge team lead and assistant front office manager. He is also beginning an evolution of his own. “I am currently enrolled in Northern Arizona University’s School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, focused on furthering my education and bringing everything I learn back here to The Scott,” says Staten, who is slated to graduate in 2020.
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So Scottsdale! January '19