Coaching his two sons’ Vancouver Thunderbirds Minor Hockey Association teams has been a great training ground to prepare Steve Sammut for his new job as Rocky Mountaineer’s president.
The key to winning, regardless of whether it is in the corporate world or on the ice, is teamwork, Sammut said.
“At the end of the day, a team is successful when everyone pulls in the same direction,” he told Business in Vancouver. “As coach, you learn about the importance of teamwork and motivating the players. You’ve not only got the kids but you also have got the parents, so you have to make sure that they too are all on board.”
Success, Sammut has learned, also relies on giving players and employees the tools they need to do their job.
To that end, Sammut has embarked on a $100 million investment, the largest in his company’s history.
Sammut expects to have 14 new cars in operation by 2019, thanks to orders with different suppliers for more of the company’s luxury double-deck GoldLeaf vehicles as well as more single-level SilverLeaf trains.
This follows the announcement last year that Rocky Mountaineer would refurbish its entire 16-car GoldLeaf fleet.
More train railcars are necessary because some dates in the 2016 season, which starts next month, are already sold out. It is a welcome scenario for a company that four years ago was mired in controversy for locking out its workers and hiring replacement employees during a labour dispute in which customers had to walk past picket lines to get on the trains.
Sammut was hired as Rocky Mountaineer’s executive vice-president and CFO in September 2012, the same month that a deal with workers ended the lockout.
Workers went through a union-decertification process and all employees are now non-union.
“We have a very strong relationship with our employees,” Sammut said. “We have nice trains and the scenery and everything else, but a big part of what we do is create a fantastic environment for our guests, and that’s what our people do.”
Annual retention among Rocky Mountaineer’s 260 seasonal employees runs at about 50%, which Sammut said is high for the industry.
The company recently completed a hiring campaign to recruit about 130 new seasonal employees in time for the season’s April 19 launch.
‘The full experience’
Three of the railway’s four routes wind through B.C. to Alberta, either via Kamloops or Whistler and Quesnel, and extend to either Banff or Jasper national parks.
The newest route, to Seattle, launched in 2013 – a short jaunt that must be combined with a second journey leaving Vancouver.
“We’re not about the day trips,” Sammut explained. “We’re about the full experience on the train. If people are just looking to get between the two cities, they’re looking more for transportation purposes so they can just take Amtrak or something else.”
The Seattle route is important for Rocky Mountaineer, however, particularly given that Seattle’s port has processed more cruise passengers than has Port Metro Vancouver each year since 2010 – and cruise passengers are a key target customer base for the rail tour company.
Enlarging that customer base is one of the company’s top priorities, Sammut said. One thing that is likely to help on that front is the recent agreement between the U.S. and Canada to allow full pre-clearance in Vancouver. That would enable all passengers to simply get off the train once they arrive in Seattle.
“We’ve got a fantastic product and wonderful guest experience, but our brand awareness, even though we’re working on it, is low,” he said.
To improve that image, Sammut recently spent 10 days in Australia, meeting travel agents and other partners who market Rocky Mountaineer Down Under.
‘Smart deal-maker’
Unlike for his predecessor at Rocky Mountaineer – former president Randy Powell, who had plenty of experience running large organizations – this is 45-year-old Sammut’s first job as head of a company, although he briefly ran his own lawn-scaping business during university.
Toronto-born, Sammut was driven to excel in school by his Maltese immigrant parents, who had high expectations.
He completed an undergraduate degree in life sciences at the University of Toronto but remained unsure what he wanted to do.
“I was 20 years old, thinking that I’d ruined my life, so I saw a guidance counsellor,” he said. “I liked business. So I worked at ScotiaMcLeod as a marketing assistant on the brokerage side and then did my MBA at McMaster University.”
That international MBA program enabled Sammut to do some of his degree work at Manchester Business School in England.
When he returned to Canada, he worked at CIBC World Markets in corporate banking and he achieved his chartered financial analyst designation at the same time.
The chance to move to Vancouver came just before the dawn of the new millennium, when ski resort operator Intrawest hired Sammut as director of finance. He worked his way up to the position of senior vice-president and CFO of the company’s real estate division.
After Fortress Investment Group bought Intrawest, and the global recession took hold, Intrawest stopped growing and Sammut’s enthusiasm for the job waned.
“He likes to push things forward and to grow companies,” said Intracorp CEO Don Forsgren, who hired Sammut in 2010 as his company’s CFO.
“Steve is a very smart dealmaker. He’s a good, creative thinker and is able to maintain a high level of discipline. He’s not reckless but he does aggressively want to expand things. That makes him a great choice at Rocky Mountaineer, particularly if they want to expand the business.”
The discipline that Forsgren mentions can be seen in Sammut’s dedication to staying in shape. In addition to playing hockey, he often runs, in the summer, from his Dunbar home to Rocky Mountaineer’s Terminal Avenue office – an office that will soon move to 980 Howe Street.
“I’ll bring in two sets of clothes and then I’ll run home from the office and then run to work the next day,” he said. “When you run home, you have no choice but to run back because the clothes and the car are at the office.
