Former tourism chief back in class
Batistatos teaching, studying hospitality
It has been a little over a year since the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority board moved to not renew the contract of its longtime president and CEO Speros Batistatos in a move shrouded in controversy.
When Batistatos looks to the future, it may not the one he had envisioned, but the former tourism chief has found a niche teaching at the White Lodging School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue University Northwest, where he is also studying for his master’s degree.
“It’s different being a student,” Batistatos said. “You’re never too old to learn.”
He expects to complete his degree by the spring of 2023.
Godwin-Charles Ogbeide was head of the hospitality institute when he encouraged Batistatos to join the staff as a teaching assistant. Hiring someone like Batistatos, with his decades of experience and insights in the industry, is invaluable to students, Ogbeide said.
“It’s not just having the credentials to teach, it’s having the experience the real world experience you can articulate into the classroom,” Ogbeide said.
He said teaching is like mentoring and it suits the former tourism chief.
“Teaching is developing the future,” Ogbeide said.
Nicholas Lane of Valparaiso was a student in his class as a junior.
“I really appreciated all his experience,” Lane said.
Typically, students are required to come up with a hypothetical business to determine how feasible it would be to set up and operate.
“He got people he knew to bring us real-life projects,” Lane said.
The projects focused on Bulldog Park in Crown Point, the Johnson’s Inn property on Lake Michigan and the sports complex in Valparaiso.
“I think the fact we had actual real-life projects we were doing for
real-life people was much more rewarding than a hypothetical project,” Lane said.
Batistatos looks back at the time he spent with the tourism bureau, checking off accomplishments that span his 30-plus year tenure and have helped shape what tourism in the region looks like.
He touts the highlights of his career with the tourism bureau — getting the Indiana Welcome Center built, securing funding increases for the bureau from the state legislature, and the trust built with the state that brought continued investment in the agency and mission.
“To me, I’m very proud of that,” he said recently from his home, where he is spending newly found free time with his new toddler Angelos with his wife Aimee. Batistatos said about 10 to 15 percent of legislators change every two years, so maintaining the respect among a highly transitory body like the legislature was important.
“It’s a testament to team’s ability to work across the aisle and across parties,” Batistatos said.
When he looks back, Batistatos says his memories revolve around the team that helped him carry out the bureau’s mission.
“I’m very proud of the legislative relationships we built and maintained and maintain to this day. I had to get the elected officials to understand the power and benefit of the hospitality industry,” Batistatos said, adding that effort was not done alone.
He touted mentors like the late Bill Wellman, who served on the board of the SSCVA in various capacities including as chairman, until 2021 when he was replaced by Andy Qunell as the governor’s appointee, and former state Rep. Chet Dobis.
He said Dobis was dubious of the fledgling agency and wound up being one of the bureau’s biggest believers in the power of the hospitality industry and the jobs it creates. Those relationships made are another great source of pride including being asked to be a member of former U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky’s fundraising team.
Batistatos also said he is proud of the careers that were fostered at the agency. Some of the young people who have walked through he bureau’s doors are now leading destinations of their own such as Jason Sands, who is now vice president of sports at Visit Forth Worth, and Jim Zaleski, economic development director for Parsons, Kansas.
“There are plenty of other stories. The number of careers we were able to help shape and influence means a lot,” he said.
He lauded his former staff for their role in the accomplishments the agency achieved over the years, as well as board members who served as mentors.
“I can’t use the word ‘I’. It was always ‘We’,” he said.
Batistatos said he is most proud of the ability to forge relationships with the board and elected officials and the people who brought in business like the girls National Softball Association tournaments. The SSCVA was instrumental elevating tourism’s impact on the economy and changing the light in which people view Northwest Indiana.
“Nobody was talking about quality of place 15 years ago besides us. We were able to galvanize a team of local businesses to give us $100,000 a year to promote moving to Indiana,” he said.
“I really believe in the power of hospitality to change people’s lives,” Batistatos said.
As one of the six original lobbyists advocating for casino gaming in the state, he said there would be no casino industry if not for the SSCVA and a handful of others including former State Sen. Earline Rogers and former State Rep. Charlie Brown.
“We accomplished things no one thought could be done in a rustbelt decaying area like the region. We were on that team. We were part of the new Lake County and Northwest Indiana you see today. We had a very good part of that and I’m proud of that,” he said.
Rogers said Batistatos was the first one to come and testify in favor of the casino bill when she was finally able to get a hearing on the matter in the legislature.
“I will always appreciate his attention to that, the fact he made the trip to Indianapolis in support of that,” Rogers said.
She said the revenues that have been generated from the casinos over the years have been invaluable to the communities of Gary, East Chicago and Hammond where they are located but also to all of Northwest Indiana. Batistatos said a big disappointment from his time as the tourism chief was the inability to get a Northwest Indiana convention center done. He said such regional work cannot be accomplished when communities fight over borders. The impact of a convention center would be widespread throughout the region, he said.
Batistatos said he is not bitter about being replaced, but is still upset about the way it was handled after contributing 30 years to growing the agency and its impact on the region. He had no reason to believe his contract wouldn’t be renewed this year.
“I never fathomed the board would treat me that way,” Batistatos said.
“I leave a legacy of impartiality and one of mission focus,” he said. “When my administration talked about the convention and visitors authority, it was about heads in beds.”
In retrospect, he said, it looks easy when you walk into an organization that is mature and successful and you have no understanding how it got there.
“It’s real easy to be critical of personality, approaches or styles when you’ve inherited the success. It’s easy to be critical when the building is built, you have a $5 million budget and one of the best staffs in America,” he said. Batistatos said he had no reason to believe his contract wouldn’t be renewed this year.
While Batistatos would not rule out returning to work for a “dream job”, right now he is happy to work shaping the next generation of hospitality leaders and spending time with his family.
“I think this is a real good balance enjoying time at home with family making very sizable albeit quiet contribution to our community to the industry,” he said.