CEO's You Should Know: Miriam Atria

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to CEOs. You should knowI'm Christopher Thompson from iHeartMedia, joined by
Mariamitria. She is the president andCEO of Capital City, Lake Murray Country,
and Mariam is important as this areais to you. Let's start with
finding out how long you've been here. Wow, let's see, I've been
here since nineteen seventy nine. Iwas relocated here from an insurance brokerage firm

(00:26):
out of Charlotte, North Carolina andBlue Cross Blouse. She'll hired me to
come in to be their director ofmarketing and communications. And is your background
always in the southeast basically? Okay? All right, and tell us about
the mission of your organization. Whatmakes Lake Murray Country, for example,

(00:46):
unique from other areas or other organizationsthat promote the midlands. Well, what
makes us unique is that we longago, since nineteen eighty one, have
been in business. And I startedthere in nineteen eighty three and immediately saw
that in the midlands of South Carolina, one of the largest assets that we

(01:07):
have for outdoor recreation are our riversand Lake Murray and we have been promoting
that outdoor recreation market every since nineteeneighty three. You saw that jewels sitting
there and thought, I did theperfect thing to center our our tourism focus
around right. You know, whenyou stop and look at the Midlands and
you think about what draws people here? You answer that question one way and

(01:34):
then you answer it what would drawpeople here to stay for a night or
perhaps two nights or three four whatever. So that's it. You answer the
first question differently than you would answerthe second question. And of course what
our goal is is to generate economicimpact and revenues for our region of this

(01:57):
part of South Carolina, and wedo that through bringing in major events,
those of visitors coming through and orfrom these events, and promoting the area
for outdoor recreation. Mariam Maitria iswith us, the president and CEO of
Capital C Lake Murray Country. Mariam, you talk about visitors, what about

(02:19):
those who want to stay longer?I mean, do you work with real
estate agents as well and say,you know, I'm bringing in all these
people, maybe you ought to targetthis particular group. Very early on,
we also established the need to communicatewith those traveling. We have three major
interstates running through this region, andso we were it's very hard to get
signage. Not only for Drew IslandState Park, believe it or not,

(02:43):
had no signage on Interstate twenty six, but also to establish a regional visitor
center. We were the first visitorcenter and we also place a sign for
the visitor center out on the interstate. That alone has drawn and I would
say thousands actually to come here andlearn about the area and then they fall

(03:06):
in love. Our visitor center haslots of information in it for not only
visitors traveling through from the perspective ofhotels, restaurants, where to go,
what's to see, what's open,what's not. But most importantly, we
have a lot of relocation. Wesaw this during COVID especially, and a
lot of retirement families coming here fromall over the United States. It's shocking

(03:32):
to us to see where they're movingand relocating from as well. Believe it
or not, Florida, New York, New Jersey, California, Florida.
People would think you were moving toFlorida. Instead, we have people coming
back. In fact, I've gottenants on my own property from Florida.

(03:53):
Wow. Yes, they're looking tobuild here. And since you mentioned it,
a quick word about your visitor centerbecause it is so you Yes,
it is. We were very fortunateto receive a donation of an eighteen forty
historical home, and the building orthe home was located over on Saint Andrew's

(04:14):
Road, and in the early ninetieswe took that historical home, picked it
up, put it on a niceflatbed, and moved it out to the
Lake Marie Dam to become the regionalvisitor center. And for those who don't
know the history of the home,as I said, it was built in
eighteen forty, excuse me, Iwanted to say nineteen forty. Time is

(04:35):
passing quickly. Eighteen forty it wasthe oldest residing residence in Lexing County when
we were donated the home. Itset on one hundred and fifty acres.
It was an old farmhouse and whenSherman's troops came through Columbia, the troops
took over that farm and they barbecuea pig in the dining room, the

(05:00):
fireplace, the ballplaces, and theyleft and scrape the coals out onto the
beautiful heart of pine flooring. Ofcourse, the house was gonna go up
in flames. Fortunately the farmers werehiding out in the woods. So you
can stop in that beautiful visitor centertoday. And see we still have the

(05:20):
original floors except in front of thedining room fireplace where they were patched.
But all the flooring in that homeruns wild wall. You'll see the patchwork
of the flooring. It is anamazing looking building. Of course, makes
you unique from any other traditional lookingvisitor center. Yeah, it displays our

(05:43):
true Southern hospitality, I believe absolutely. Let's talk about your philosophy and your
spirit and what drives you well.First of all, do you have a
motto? Does Mariamitria get driven toget up each morning by anything in particular?
Yes, never take no for anounce. I was very fortunate and
when I was in my late twenties, I did not have a college education.

(06:05):
I have one year of business college. That was it. I got
married at a very tender age,but I was fortunate. The people that
came into my life were, inmy opinion, better than any college professional
could have ever been. I wastrained at an early age by a Wall

(06:27):
Street company, an insurance brokerage firm, Johnson and Higgins, and they were
located in Charlotte, North Carolina,and one of the men in the department
I worked in marketing I was justbasically an administrative assistant. There. He
saw something in me that I didn'tknow I had, and it was my

(06:47):
creativity and my drive, and sohe was trying We at the time sold
to large groups employee benefits, andthat was back in the day before there
was ever video or Facebook or anyof this modern stuff, much less even
almost a computer. But we weredoing presentations before large employee benefit groups,

(07:15):
telling them about their health insurance,their dental insurance. But we did it
in a unique way, and thatwas through slide shows. And I don't
know if you even remember this,but years ago, to make that slide
show move and entertaining. Instead ofgoing to a boring auditorium and sitting there
and there's a slide up there andthen all of a sudden, you're a
click, we made it move.We had eight and sixteen stacked units to

(07:40):
where it was almost like the figureswere dancing across the screen, kind of
like the principle of the Disney book. So early on, I was trained
and fortunate enough to be sent tothe New York home office of Johnson Higgins
and they did a lot of backgroundtraining and sales had to take the Xerox

(08:01):
sales course, the deal Carnegie Course, the Leo I can't even remember the
other one to Bo's sales course.And so that's where it kind of taught
me walking into a business to sitthere and have a conversation and tell them
all the wonderful things that you haveto offer your potential client there, but
don't leave that room without even budgetingbefore they've said no to you nine times.

(08:26):
And that's been my motto all theseyears. Is you know, when
we were moving the old house,we had one hundred and eighty one utility
workers involved in that move. Noone realizes the news that we received.
And we even went to some ofthe folks in Lexington County to ask for

(08:46):
dollars that are qualified to go towardsa businesor center and was told, well,
you know, I don't really thinkyou can move that house. And
I said, listen, could youjust set the money aside. If we
we come back to you in threeto five months and say everything signed,
everything's ready to go, you'll writethe check then, right And they said,

(09:07):
well, okay, we'll set itaside, and sure enough we made
that happen. And that was aboutbelieving you have to believe, you have
to have the passion in your job, and once you find that, you'll
be successful at everything you did.You mentioned a couple of mentors at that
company where you started. Is thereany one particular person who has influenced your

(09:30):
leadership style more than most, Well, that person has passed away, but
he was my former boss. Infact, he was the reason I came
down to Columbia, South Carolina,because when he left the company and came
to Columbia, he was in thedepartment where I was in Charlotte had new
management and it totally changed, andso I kind of lost my love of

(09:56):
what I was doing and started lookingfor or another position. And so I
was brought down to Columbia at BlueCross to assist in their trainee programs for
sales where we would get the kidsout of college or early starters, and
I had to put together a coursefor them to learn how to sell Blue
Cross blue Shield product, and thenI had to assist in the creation of

(10:22):
various brochures for the sales folks onhow to sell that insurance. We did
this through training classes. We didthis through putting them on video and making
them deliver rating increases to their clientsand you know, really teaching them the
hardcore tools of sales. Well,the Midlands has certainly benefited from you moving

(10:43):
down here all those years ago.She's Mary A. Matrius. She's president's
CEO of Capital City, Lake MarieCountry. Mariam. Anything you've seen read
recently, maybe listen to a podcastthat has inspired you or your work.
Well, I really am so busytrying to run our small company or organization

(11:03):
that I don't get a chance todo a lot of reading. And now
I'm a grandmother of five well fourand three quarters i would say, grandkids
and an aging husband. So inmy time, I've got a staff of
nine or well there's nine of ustotal. Keeps me so busy. I
really do not have time to read. Twenty four hours a day. I

(11:24):
feel like I'm working. I doget some sleep every now and then.
But I think the most inspiring thingfor me is to say that when you
have a group of hard working employeesand you see that they're picking up your
mantra, so to speak, yourdrive, and see them really going out

(11:48):
into the community and making that difference, that's what's inspiring to me personally.
Well, you were your drive isinspiring to a lot of people. And
I know there may be some youngerfolks. You know, we've got the
diversity here in town, some peoplewho might just be getting out of school
and thinking, I'd love to dowhat she does. What advice would you
give to, let's say, agraduate, a freshly minted graduate who wanted

(12:13):
to go into tourism or economic developmentor marketing, even all those hats you
wear, all these hats, well, I would say that they need to
certainly try to find what part oftourism they would like to be in,
because there's so many. You know, be it you a restaurant tour be

(12:33):
you a hoteler, be you amat from our perspective, marketing a destination
so to speak, that that's yourfirst qualification. You've got to figure out
which one of those fields you wantto go down. Learn as much as
you can, do as much researchas you can before going to an interview,
to really try to have a grasp. I was always used to tell

(12:54):
people to kind of pre interview.You know, you send your resume when
you're looking for a job, makesure that is the best work. When
you go to that interview, youmake sure if you've got any examples of
the great things you've done since whileyou were in school, perhaps you've done
things for your church or other groupsin the community. Make sure you come

(13:15):
to that interview prepared, bring allof your portfolio, bring your references.
Wouldn't you'd be surprised at the peopleI have interviewed and they come in and
they don't have anything but somewhat ofa resume put together out of school.

(13:37):
It's shocking to me. It isshocking to me. And that first impression.
I do have a joke I playin my office dress for success.
Everybody thinks I'm talking about clothes.You only get one chance to make that
first impression. And when you're interviewingwith someone, that first impression means everything.

(14:00):
That's great advice. And I'm sureyou've interviewed many over the years,
some who've made that good impression.In some you've said, well, not
for me, not for me.You've talked about family. I'm guessing when
you do have downtime, that isyour number one priority. My family is
my number one priority. In mybackground, I raised twin boys, my
husband and I. He's a retiredlawyer here in Columbia, and one of

(14:24):
our twins works with Bank of Americathe financial investment area, and my other
son is a civil engineer and architectin downtown Dallas, Texas. Very successful
young men. And we used toalways have all these little sayings, why
do you work, Just spoil yourself, trust, but verify, Like Ronald

(14:46):
Reagan used to say, I usethat a lot in within our organization.
But you know, being very involvedin the community and giving back. And
the best compliment I think a childcould ever pay parent was paid to me
about two years ago from one ofmy sons and he said, you know,
mom, you know what you reallytaught us. You know we you

(15:07):
know, they're very spiritual young men, but you taught us work ethic And
that is the missing ingredient I seetoday coming from young folks coming into the
workplace. Is some or have notbeen raised with that. You know,

(15:30):
to get there, you got tostart here and you got to show how
you can make that difference. Well, I was going to ask you,
that's that's always my final question iswhat missing ingredient? What are we missing
here in the Midlands that if wehad it, it would turn us into
the envy of the rest of thecountry is that it. I think that's

(15:52):
one ingredient. But if you askedme that question from a tourism perspective,
I'm going to answer it totally different. Okay, right, well, let
me ask you that. Let meask you that from a tourism perspective.
We need a significant addition to ourColumbia Convention Center, and we need a
resort hotel on Lake Murray. Youknow, I've been in this job.

(16:14):
I'm going into my forty first,forty second, who's counting the year?
But years ago the Department's Parks forCreation and Tourism did a study and they
went I had a group out ofI'm trying to remember where they were from
now it's been that long ago,but they came here to identify in our
state of South Carolina how to growtourism from the inside. You know,

(16:40):
we have our beaches, we haveHilton Head and certainly Charleston being the world
tourism draw that Charleston is, Buthow do we grow it with inside the
state. We have a lot ofrural communities, a lot of rural counties.
How do we grow it? Andin our region they identified number one
probably was the convention center expansion.Number two was a resort on Lake Murray,

(17:04):
a resort hotel, and it's sadto see that we don't have that.
Our organization has actually walked away frombusiness over and over again on some
very large groups because of that thatwere water related. They couldn't stay in
downtown Columbia. We do feed ourColumbia hotels. A lot of people don't

(17:29):
realize Harveston area has a lot ofthe Columbia hotels. We feed strongly our
Lexington hotels. One of the biggestfull service hotels is the Double Tree right
there on twenty and that's located inLexing County, so but not close enough
to the lake right Well, youknow, we have a lot of people

(17:49):
renting homes on the lake now fortour vacationing, but we do have them
coming here staying in hotels as wellfor that. And the Convention Center,
you is simply because it's not bigenough. It's not big enough for the
groups that you're you're hosting at times. Well not only that, it's you
know, again, how do yougrow. I'm sure if you were to

(18:11):
pull numbers, and I don't havethose here today, But the Columbia Convention
center itself. You know, it'spretty booked. So if you want to
grow, how do you grow?And I know that's something that experienced Columbia
s C folks have been working onand we're in support of that increase as

(18:33):
well, I'm sure as they're insupport of making sure our leisure marketing can
increase with a resort hotel on LakeMurray and Marian. While we have you
here, are you working on anythingnew, something maybe future fans of Lake
Murray might be interested in. Well, interesting, you should ask. We
actually are working on something new.We have been very involved in this started

(18:56):
during COVID and supporting our chefs aroundour region and trying to get them some
exposure. And so we have hadthree Taste of Blake Murray, some qualifying
events to take chefs to the WorldFood Championship and this is a place where
they can go and compete in thefood sport arena and to get financials,

(19:18):
win large dollar prizes and show offtheir culinary skills while at the same point
we're promoting our region's culinary scene.So we had tried to get the World
Through Championship to relocate at Columbia fortheir annual event. And when that did
not happen, we decided we're goingto create our own what are we known

(19:40):
for in the Southeast and what arewe known for in South Carolina? Barbecue?
So we created the Southeastern Barbecue Showdownand this is going to be the
first food sport competition event in afood sport I mean in a sports complex.
We're holding it at Sega Park inJune. Interestingly enough, we tied
to that Alabama concert. How aboutthat? So we're really excited about Alabama

(20:04):
being part of this massive event.Abion that got it start right here in
South Carolina. Yes, So we'vegot chef from across Southeast coming and actually
we have a chef from Japan coming. Wow. So they're going to be
showing off all their culinary skills strictlyfor barbecue, and of course a public
that comes purchase of the tickets tothe Alabama concert, we'll also be able

(20:27):
to get a little tasting of allthe chefs fine barbecue culinary talents. And
you want that to be a traditionhere in South Carolina. I do.
We want to make this an annualevent. And again we're having at Saidray
Park and we're kicking it off Junefourteenth and fifteenth. Someone you can learn

(20:48):
from, someone you can get inspiredby. She is Maryamitria, President and
CEO of Capital City, Lake MurrayCountry. Mariam, great to see you
and thanks for joining us on CEOsyou should know. Thank you for the like