The Heart of Hospitality

Hotel Maverick welcomes a new General Manager and Director of Food, Beverage and Culinary who are inspired to mentor the next generation of students

Teaching hotels are nothing new. In fact, they’ve been around since the 1800s, when the first hospitality program started in Switzerland. It’s only in recent years, though, that teaching hotels have become popular
in the U.S.

One of these hotels is located right on CMU’s campus. Hotel Maverick — a 60-room boutique hotel with the rooftop restaurant, Devil’s Kitchen — opened in 2020 and offers students hands-on opportunities in hospitality
and culinary arts.

Recently, the hotel hired two members of its management team to lead the charge: General Manager Brian Smith and Director of Food, Beverage and Culinary Ernie Brown.

Brian Smith, General Manager

Brian Smith knew he wanted to be in the hospitality business ever since he was a child growing up outside of Boston.

“My father worked with hotels and I’d tag along on business trips, so I got a lot of exposure to the hotel environment from an early age,” he said. “I enjoyed the dynamic nature, fast-paced environment and the passion that the employees seemed to have for their job. There were so many smiling faces and positive attitudes and positive energy, so it drew me in.”

When he was in high school, he worked as a dishwasher and busboy in Boston hotels, which is when he realized the industry was a true calling. Smith went on to study hospitality at the University of Massachusetts, which has its own teaching hotel.

“The university has a fantastic hotel management program and a great teaching hotel environment similar to what we have on CMU’s campus,” he said.

Smith’s career has taken him from San Francisco to Seattle to Denver to Washington D.C. — working for brands such as DoubleTree, Kimpton and Hyatt. While being a general manager at a downtown Boston hotel was his dream growing up, during the two years he spent back near his hometown, he felt a pull to return to Colorado.

“I just missed Colorado too much,” said Smith. “After seven years of Colorado living and coming back to the East Coast, I realized that Colorado was where my heart was. Besides, my son was even born in Denver, so he’s a Colorado native, which is important out here,” he laughed. “So, we saw Grand Junction as a great place to raise him. We’ve lived in a number of different communities, but we felt that Grand Junction offered just as much if not more.”

The general manager position at Hotel Maverick appealed to him not only because of its location, but because the campus offered hands-on education to hospitality students through the teaching hotel program.

“I benefitted greatly from studying in that environment and I really wanted to be a part of that,” he said. “And the small hotel size means that I can talk to almost every guest that’s in our hotel and talk to every employee that’s working here. Some of those larger hotels where I’ve worked, you simply can’t spread yourself that thin.”

Ernie Brown, Director of Food, Beverage and Culinary

Ernie Brown acquired a love for cooking growing up in Oklahoma.

“My mom home-cooked all the time so I spent a lot of time as a kid learning from her,” he said.

As a teenager, his dad opened a steakhouse outside St. George, Utah and Brown learned through working there that he was a natural.

“My dad really put me to work,” he laughed. “I was peeling potatoes and cleaning shrimp and prepping steaks and learning how to butcher at an early age. It piqued my interest.”

When Brown was in high school, his family moved to Vegas, an epicenter of the culinary world. He started his career immediately after high school, starting as a late-night cook on Fremont Street and then working on the strip at the Monte Carlo Hotel. He obtained a degree from the Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Las Vegas and then worked at Caesars Entertainment, working with everyone in the food scene from Gordon Ramsey to Bobby Flay.

He got his first taste of Colorado in 2015 when he moved to Breckenridge where he became executive chef of Vail Resorts. But his career aspirations took him on another path to pick up front of house skills across the country. He worked everywhere from New York to Wisconsin to Georgia where he served as a food and beverage director and corporate executive chef at casinos and resorts.

When the position opened at CMU, he knew it was meant for him.

“Something about the hotel just speaks to me,” he said. “The idea of being on a campus and training and mentoring people was exciting for me, too. The atmosphere and attitude here is just so much better than anywhere I’ve ever worked.”

The Devil’s Kitchen’s focus on upscale Colorado-based fare also makes the environment a special one to Brown.

“I wanted to focus on keeping things local and to teach students about being sustainable and make it a positive environment for Colorado itself,” he said.

Both Smith and Brown’s addition to the Hotel Maverick staff have already made an impact on students and guests alike. Passion like theirs always shines through, and these two certainly have an abundance of it.