Tippet's tenure

Ian Tippet remembers the Glacier National Park lodges in a different time.

It was a time when college students applied in the tens of thousands to work in the lodges. When hosting guests meant entertaining them. Sure, there's still plenty of hospitality at park hotels, but back then, there was hospitality with a capital H.

Tippet has been working in the Glacier lodges for about 60 years. He spent 25 years as the Many Glacier Hotel manager and the human resources manager for Glacier Park Inc., which owns and operates the lodges.

The consummate English gentleman, he still works as a consultant for GPI while running the GPI mailroom in the Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier.

He first came to the United States in 1950 on a scholarship with Hilton Hotels. He graduated from hotel school in London.

Tippet quickly learned of Glacier and that's when he began working in "glorious Glacier," as he often refers to the park. He had various jobs in Glacier lodges, including manager of the Lake McDonald Lodge and the Glacier Park Lodge, working seasonally for Great Northern Railway, which owned the lodges at the time.

Then in 1961, Don Hummel took over the concession of the lodges under GPI and asked Tippet to come along as a full-time employee. He would remain in that position until 1982.

"I fell in love with Glacier," said Tippet of his decision to join Hummel.

Tippet said Hummel "was looking for five right-hand employees," to manage the lodges. Hummel needed people he could trust and Tippet fit the bill.

It was a tough job right from the start. Hummel wanted to eliminate 400 employees in the company and downsize the hotel work force from 1,200 to 800.

Tippet had a rigorous schedule managing both Many Glacier Hotel and all the GPI employees. He spent his winters in Tucson, Ariz., doing human-resources work and came up to Many Glacier for the summer. He worked 18-hours days, seven days a week.

His human-resources oversight included employees at Lake McDonald Lodge, Village Inn at Apgar, Many Glacier Hotel, Rising Sun Motor Inn, Swiftcurrent Motor Inn, Glacier Park Lodge and Canada's Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park.

Tippet wanted the best employees in the country and Hummel had instructed him to find at least one from every state.

So Tippet each year sent out mailings to "every college in the country."  What he got back was 25,000 applications for the 800 spots.

"I would spend three hours every morning opening the trays of mail," he said.

Then he would select the best candidates for each hotel. Many Glacier was filled with music and theater college students and Glacier Park Lodge with student athletes.

It was a different time in human resources, he said. Each application came with an applicant's photo and references who would eventually become "sponsors" for the employee by signing the employee's contract.

Management took a great deal of care in choosing staff for the hotels.

From the minute guests arrived at Many Glacier Hotel they were entertained. Singing bellmen welcomed guests to the hotel. Nightly musical performances, singing performances during dinners and a full-scale Broadway production each summer were the mainstays of the lodge.

Tippet said it was important to entertain guests, in part because the lodge accommodations weren't luxurious.

"The walls were thin. There wasn't an elevator. When it was hot the rooms were as hot as Hades and freezing when it was cold," he said. "About half the rooms had lake views, but everyone wanted a lake view."

His philosophy was to get the guests out of their rooms and entertain them.

"We got around some of the deficiencies by giving the guests a great time," he said. "The hope was that they'd say 'the room wasn't right, but I had such a wonderful time I'll forget it.'"

At Glacier Park Lodge, athletes became the norm because Hummel had decided a weekly flag-football game would be the entertainment at the hotel.

So, "Tippet's Choir Boys," would travel to the Glacier Park Lodge to play the game. The Many Glacier employees brought along a band and the Glacier Park Lodge countered with a band playing pots and pans.

"They creamed us," said Tippet. But that was the point.

Not only did the games provide guests entertainment, it also boosted employee morale.

It was one of the many events that Tippet organized for the lodges. Others included the employee culinary Olympics and the Miss Glacier pageant. Each lodge held a contest for the pageant, and then Miss Glacier was chosen at a final pageant at Many Glacier.

Governors and park superintendents were some of the many judges over the years.

Tippet still maintains a demanding schedule and never takes a day off. He begins his day between 2:30 and 3 a.m. when he arrives at the Glacier Park Lodge mailroom. He takes care of all the mail for 1,000 GPI employees.

"They've asked me to not come in until 4 a.m.," he said. "But there's just too much to do."

He finishes his day at 7 p.m. when he turns in for the night.

Tippet, who arrives at the lodge in April, also takes care of several of the planters on the grounds until gardening crews arrive.

In 1982, Tippet retired from GPI. He now splits his time between Tucson, Ariz., London and East Glacier.

While he's technically retired, he has no plans of slowing down. During the winter season Tippet works at Grosvenor House, a historic luxury hotel in London.

"I feel very grateful. It is a privilege to work in East Glacier," he said. "I'll probably work 'til I drop."