HARRIS ROSEN

President and Chief Operating Officer of

ROSEN HOTELS & RESORTS, INC.

 

Harris Rosen is president and COO of Rosen Hotels & Resorts and is Florida’s largest independent hotelier.   Founded in 1974, Rosen Hotels & Resorts currently features a collection of seven Central Florida hotels offering a total of more than 6,300 guest rooms, approximately six percent of the Central Florida inventory.

Early Career

Born and raised on New York City’s lower eastside, Rosen received a bachelor’s of science degree in 1961 from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. He served for three years in the United States Army as an officer in Germany and South Korea, and then completed the Advanced Management course at the University of Virginia’s Graduate School of Business on a Hilton Corp. Scholarship.

Rosen began his career at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City as a convention salesman. He continued with the Hilton Hotel Corporation occupying various management positions in some of the larger Hilton hotels. He worked as the Director of Food and Beverage Operations at the Pittsburgh Hilton; the Assistant General Manager at the Buffalo Statler/Hilton; the Assistant General Manager at the Dallas Hilton; the Assistant General Manager at the New Yorker Hotel and the General Manager of the Cape Kennedy Hilton.

Rosen then joined the Post Company of Dallas as Director of Hotel Operations and while there was involved in the development and management of one of the finest resort properties in Acapulco. He left the Post Company after several years to join the Disney Company in California as Director of Hotel Planning. He was intimately involved in the design and development of the Contemporary Resort Hotel and the Polynesian Village Hotel both of which opened at Walt Disney World in Orlando in October of 1971.

 Rosen Hotels & Resorts

 In 1974 Rosen left Disney to purchase the 256-room Quality Inn on International Drive in Orlando. Today, with 728 rooms it is the second largest Quality Inn in the chain. Along the way, Rosen acquired the Rodeway Inn International with 315 rooms and subsequently purchased 14 acres on International Drive to build the Quality Inn Plaza which at 1,020 rooms was the largest Quality Inn in the nation. In 2010, the Quality Inn Plaza became the Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando and the Rodeway Inn International became the Rosen Inn closest to Universal.

 On May 15, 1987 Rosen completed the first phase of his 640-room Comfort Inn Lake Buena Vista. This property achieved such extraordinary success that an additional 320 rooms were completed one year ahead of schedule. In 2010, the property was upgraded to become the Clarion Inn Lake Buena Vista. All four leisure properties underwent extensive multi-million dollar renovations in 2010.

On September 13, 1991, the 800-room Rosen Plaza opened its doors as the first convention hotel within the Rosen Hotels & Resorts family. It completed its first fiscal year with occupancies in the mid ninety percent range. I n October 1995, Rosen opened the 1,334-room Rosen Centre, the company’s second convention hotel. Both hotels bookend the West Building of the Orange County Convention Center.

Approximately nine years ago, Rosen acquired 250 acres directly east of the 1.5-million sq. ft. expansion of the Orange County Convention Center. On this site he developed his newest property, the 1,500-room Shingle Creek which opened in September 2006. The resort has approximately 445,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and includes a multitude of resort amenities including the Shingle Creek Golf Course, The Spa at Shingle Creek and 14 dining/lounging options.

Rosen Hotels has several subsidiaries that work with the parent company to create a synergy that maximizes operational efficiencies. Founded in 1997 as an internal solution for Rosen Hotels & Resorts, Millennium Technology Group in Orlando is a leading provider of quality IT products and telecommunications services for the hospitality industry. Founded in 1995, Provinsure is Rosen’s insurance agency and risk management consulting company and assists companies in setting up self-insured healthcare programs and primary care medical centers similar to Rosen Hotels’ in-house programs. Rosen Hotels & Resorts has been nationally recognized for its innovative, trend-setting associate wellness and preventative care programs as well as the company’s low-cost insurance and on-site, full-service medical clinic.

Philanthropy

In 2002, Rosen donated a 20-acre site at the foot of Rosen Shingle Creek and $10 million to the University of Central Florida to develop the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at UCF. Rosen also funds a $2.5 million dollar scholarship endowment for UCF (which was matched by the State).  The college opened in January 2004 and is currently the fastest growing college in the United States having grown from 75 students to a current enrollment of nearly 3,000 in just eight years. 

Rosen’s philanthropic endeavors include a continuing multi-million dollar commitment to the nearby disadvantaged neighborhood of Tangelo Park. Since 1993, the Tangelo Park Program has provided free preschool to all two-, three-, and four-year olds who live in the Tangelo Park neighborhood. In addition, Rosen provides an all-expense paid education for those who reside in the Tangelo Park neighborhood and are accepted to vocational school, community college, junior college or a four-year public college in the state of Florida. Thus far approximately 190 youngsters who reside in the neighborhood have been provided full college scholarships. Since 2007, Rosen has funded an alternative spring break for Cornell University students who wish to spend their spring break mentoring students from Tangelo Park.

A weekend cooking enthusiast as well as an avid fitness buff and Master swimmer, Harris Rosen has long shared his enthusiasm for wellness with his associates. As such, Rosen created Rosen’s Perfect Pizza™, a honey whole-wheat crust and zero grams of trans fat that is sold at his seven hotels as well as through the Orange County Public School system. Profits from the sales of Rosen’s Perfect Pizza fund educational scholarships for the benefit of disadvantaged students.

Rosen contributed approximately $5.4 million to design and build a new Jewish Community Center located in southwest Orlando which opened in September 2009. The JCC accommodates approximately 150 students, ages ranging from 2 months to 5 years old and provides state-of-the-art recreational facilities as well. In addition, Rosen was recently listed in Forbes magazine as the 30th most generous philanthropist in 2008 in America for having given away over $30 million.

Rosen has served as the Honorary Co-Chair of the Bethune-Cookman College Statue Project with the late Dr. Dorothy Height, President Emeriti of the National Council of Negro Women. The purpose of this initiative was to have a statue sculpted of America’s beloved Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune including fountains and landscaping on the campus of Bethune-Cookman College which Dr. Bethune founded in 1904. The fundraiser was a huge success and in January 2005, the statue was unveiled on the Bethune-Cookman College campus.

Rosen’s contributions reach beyond the Orlando community to other communities in need. Rosen Hotels has long contributed to Haiti relief, providing on-going medical and school supplies as well as hosting a “Water for Haiti” gala in 2005 that raised $350,000 to send water filtration devices to Haiti. In 2010, Rosen launched the Haiti Relief Rebuild Sustain program raising $650,000 (part of which he funded) to provide to those in need as a result of the earthquake there and to create Little Haiti Houses, safe, structurally sound and affordable housing. In Feb. 2012, the first Little Haiti House was constructed in Haiti, with plans later that spring to build additional homes.

Rosen is a member of the Cornell Society of Hotelmen and the Waldorf Astoria Distinguished Alumni Association. He is also the past president of Visit Orlando. He currently serves on the board of directors of the YMCA Aquatic Center and the board of trustees of the University of Central Florida. Harris Rosen has been honored to receive accolades through the years, some most recent of which are the Orlando Sentinel’s 2011 Central Floridian of the Year, 2011 National Philanthropy Day Lifetime Achievement Award, 2011 Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year, 2010 Visit Florida Hall of Fame, 2010 Sustainable Florida Legacy Award, 2010 Florida Hotel & Restaurant Association Hotelier of the Year, to name a few.

Personal

Rosen has four children that all live in Orlando: Jack (21), Joshua (20), Adam (19) and Shayna (17).