What would you say is like your biggest piece of inspiration for why you got ...
What was the spark that made you say, you know what? I want to own that.
“So my husband and his partners decided to put a bed at a hotel baker and I said,”
"Why would you want to do that?" I'm a nurse. You don't have any hospitality experience. They're main focus as IT. So we don't know anything about Hotel. So eventually we learned all the different areas and we're able to handle the situations of different areas pretty well. Rwena Felix Salas is a resilient, dedicated, and visionary hospitality leader, and the general manager and co-owner of the Historic Hotel Baker.
Drawing from her extensive industry expertise, she helps individuals and families celebrate life's most meaningful milestones, creating a lasting legacy of community connection,
cultural warmth, and unforgettable experiences. You know, I always want the guests to feel
special and get some historical information about the Hotel. He gives them a different appreciation of where they're staying. There's a wealth of history related to Hotel Baker. I can go on and on about it, and it never ends. I mean, every time I read something about the hotel, there's always something new that I haven't read before. That brings me to a story that I'm going to share with you. So...
It's our offer of hotel our way. The living your legacy podcast, for those who live, to leave a legacy. Welcome back to another episode of the Insight Success Podcast. I'm your host Jason Tyler, and I am joined here today with Rowana. Now, Rowana, you just finished filming your episode for Women in Power. How are you feeling now on the other side of filming your episode? Great.
“Feeling good about it? I think so. Good, good, good. So I want to just get us started.”
What do you think people will learn about you from viewing your episode? What's some lessons that they can get from it? I believe they will realize how passionate I am about what I do at Hotel Baker that I am committed and passionate about it. So bring me up to speed on Hotel Baker. What is the business model? What are we doing at Hotel Baker? And why are we, why are you so passionate
about it? Gosh, business model, never really thought about that. Now, Hotel Baker is a historic
place built in 1928, and it's registered in a National Register of Historic Places. It has quite a bit of history so that can fascinate me. And if it fascinates me, I'm sure it fascinates a number of individuals who are into history and a lot of historians out there. So every time I read about Hotel Baker or individuals who were connected with Hotel Baker, I always get some new information. It's like an never-ending well of fascination. It's true.
It's never-ending. That's the funny thing for me about history is that, especially when you think about like historical landmarks is no matter, histories in the past, it happened already. But there's so much nuance to how we view it, how we're able to understand it, what was going on at the time, what why was this built, not just the what of it, the what is there, but what is the why behind it, the who, the where, all of these different things that play into these historical landmarks. So
give me a little bit of a rundown on what your day-to-day looks like with Hotel Baker. As you're bringing people in, showing off the history of it, you're learning more about it
“every day with new information coming out. What's your day-to-day look like there?”
Day-to-day. Really, I have five managers who are rock stars and they manage their team really well, been very blessed with that. Even though I'm just, I'm title as a general manager or co-owner of the place, my husband and I own Hotel Baker, I really get to do a lot of different things.
I used to have so many different sales managers, but now I only have one and ...
So I fill in as needed in sales. And you know, I'm a nurse by training. So I can do housekeeping.
I probably make good beds. You know, I might or those go in here. Oh, I would hope so, so.
“The only thing I don't do is I don't cook. So even then the gardens, I could plant and tell you”
what things to plant and but I don't do hot tubs. I don't know how to do those for building things and grounds, but I forgot what the question was already. That's fine. What I will preface by saying is now we just did your interview, right? And the interview was very like calling response question answered. This is just a conversation, right? So I love that you said
that you do a lot of, you do so many different things because in business, right? We, as business
as well as we tend to wear a lot of hats. Yes. We wear every hat. I mean, this today I'm in sales, tomorrow I'm in management. The next day I'm doing plumbing somehow. I don't know how I ended up in plumbing, but guess what, I got to learn how to plan because a pipe broke and we just got to solve problems on the fly. What would you say is like your biggest, your biggest piece of inspiration for why you got into becoming an owner of Hotel Baker? What was the spark that made you say, you know what?
I won't, I won't own that. Or was it more of a situation? I was going to say it's quite the opposite. It was quite the opposite. So bring me up to speed. How do we, how do we get here? Yeah, so my, I has been in his partners, decided to put a bed at a hotel baker and I said, why would you want to do that? You, I'm a nurse. You don't have any hospitality experience. They're, you know, they're, they're main focus is IT. So we don't know anything about hotel. So
“we hire your hotel managers from different places and that's how we started this all.”
But eventually we learned all the different areas and we're able to handle the situations of different areas pretty well and actually most of some of our managers don't even have hospitality background, you know, and so they learned it as they went along. But their experiences, the experiences they had in their previous jobs really helped in their current positions. So it's, it's funny how that works, right? Because you can have somebody, like for, for me, for
example, I, before I ever picked up a camera, I was working as an automatic, and I was very just turned the wrench. That was, I worked with my hands. That was my thing. And then from that, I pivoted into working in food and beverage. So I was, you know, server bartender for a long period time, neither of those things by technicality filter into a film background. But I found that like skill sets that I built along that period of time, help out in these sorts of situations. Like
I used to hate the concept of seeing myself on camera and being on a podcast. You could, in 2011, you couldn't pay me to be on a podcast. But now with like the bartending experience and customer
“service experience, that kind of filters in. So I'm a firm believer in the skills that life is”
preparing you with, are ultimately going to lead you to the place that you want to be in. That
brings me to a story that I'm going to share with you. So I went to nursing school and after nursing school, I worked as a staff nurse at a VA hospital, worked in endocrinology, worked in neurology, neurosurgery, and then that was at the VA system and met a lot of veterans and so forth. And we talked about that during the interview and learned about the veterans experience during the wars and so forth and being an active duty. And then I went back to rush and I worked as a
psych nurse. I was just going to say like that in the experience of working with veterans, like yes, you were a nurse in these different fields, but you probably had to be a psychologist at some point as well, you know what? I had a girlfriend who encouraged me to apply and she was already a staff nurse at a rush and so I did and got the job and I was working there for some time and really learned a lot about doing one-on-ones with patients and doing different kinds of group sessions. It really helped
Me, I think it really did help me in my current possession and those experien...
staff nursing, I did a stint and dull school because I always wanted to be a dentist and then
“that lasts for like a year and so then left that and then I went to... Why did it only last a year?”
Because I feel like you were hesitating there first, what happened with the dentistry?
I always wanted to be a dentist and then my father lost his job during my third year in college and
he told me that I couldn't go to dental school because you know, the financing and so forth. And I was so naive, I didn't know about... I didn't really know about scholarships or loans or anything like that. So I said, okay fine, so I went to nursing and my other sister is also a nurse. She actually is a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Air Force. Oh wow. Yeah. And so I went to nursing and I learned a lot while I was a nurse. Not only was I an a nurse, but after staff
nursing, I went to human resources and I did not just recruit nurses. I also recruited
allied health professionals for the medical center. I'm seeing a narrative through line here of
“you were learning a lot about people throughout this entire... Or human resources in general?”
I mean, damn, that filters right in. The resources is learning more about people. They're even in the nursing, you were learning well people because you're dealing with people with a one or in group settings. You're hearing these veteran stories and then going into human resources. Now I have to understand the metrics of like, how do I keep a staff happy, right? So again, all of that's the filters back in to now being at the hotel. Sure. And back then I thought,
"Why, what has all this?" You know, because I had a girlfriend who also worked in human resources, but in a different department. She worked at compensation and benefits. So she taught me about
“positions on how they're graded and how each position is graded and so far so on.”
Then I learned something about employee relations where I dealt with union employees. So then I got experience with that and training and development. So I had experience with that as well. So my experience and human resources was so good. It was pretty comprehensive then. It really did help me a lot in my current position. After that I went to Philanthropy and Communications where it was also, it all had the marketing area as its arm and one of the arms in that area and I opened
um, I was privileged enough to manage a physician referral service and marketed it 2,500 physicians that we had. Wow, that's a lot. Because it's a big medical center. Yeah. And so after that, then I had my kids and then I had twin boys and I have twin boys, fraternal twin boys. And I was a stay at home mom. And when there were two years old my husband thought I was bored. With my twin boys. So yes, I wanted to be partners with a here designer who wanted to open a
salon and spa. So that's where I got and when the boys were small and I worked and a salon and spa for about five years is a partner. So I learned about you know the counting filling out a stuff for every month submitting it to the state and so forth with taxes and so forth. Yeah, the back, the back and the back and the stuff. Yeah, the legal. Right. That's the stuff that everybody wants to avoid. Yeah. Like I, if I could start a business today again and not have to do
any of that, I'd start 40 of them. Right. But because I have to do pay for work for each single one, I'll keep it to one basis at a time. Right. So I learned about all that and I had to work when I count and then that saves after five years because the lease ended and my partner continued
as a here designer and then I shortly after that I had an art gallery because my passion has always
been in the arts and when I say art gallery, these are original works of art with 35 artists that I represented and that was during a time when the economy started to tank. It was about 2,000 stars. It was about 7,000. Yeah. So we closed that and my husband said that I need to work at the hotel and be the general manager. I don't have any experience in that. No, we'll be here
For you.
going to help me in that job. But thank God I had all those experiences because it really did help me.
“So eventually when our HR person left and I was able to do that, eventually when we didn't”
need our marketing person, I started doing that. My husband bought me a Mac laptop and bought
my two kids Mac laptops. I always thought that when you have a MacBook or Mac, you know,
a MacBook, have a MacBook. You're ready to design and do layouts for advertising and so forth. It's not that simple. I thought it was that simple. And listen, I am an app. When it comes to my editing computers and all I like working in a creative field, I use all Apple. I my right there is our Mac studio. I got another my laptop, which I went and got when the M2 chip came out, I was like, give me the beefiest laptop you could possibly get. I spent like $5,000
or something. Yeah. But it's not, it does not come from Apple ready for you to just go start designing. There's so many pieces of software. I just thought if you have a Macbook, you can do all these wonderful things. Okay. I can do all things through Apple, who strengthens me. Are you familiar with the next computer? Have you ever heard of the next computer? I have not. Okay. That was when Steve Jobs left Apple. He opened up next.
Oh, wow. Yes. I don't know about this. So, um, good. Next computer. So, the next computer was what I used when we had the physician referral service where I did the marketing of the 2500 physicians, but I told you about. And so, we had those next computers,
but Steve Jobs, eventually went back to Apple and so they never, they didn't make the next
computers anymore. And so, eventually, they got rid of all that when I laughed and then they had different, a different system. But anyway, um, not many people know this, but the guts of a Macbook is really the next computer. It comes from the next computer. It comes from one of the next computer.
“And so, some people always say me, you worked with a next computer. How old are you?”
And then your rebuttal is like, you're still working with one now. Right. Right. So, yeah. I remember working with the next computer. And I said to my husband, this computer is awesome. You can open up all these different screens. You know, go from one screen and go to another. It's on the same screen. He's like, really? That was a part of what Steve Jobs was building. You have a whole Apple ecosystem.
Right. And everything functions perfectly with the next thing. And you have all these screens.
And I'm just, I have one little central keyboard. And I can use all of this. I'll never stop
singing the praises of Apple because it's helped me. I've, you know, I've done so many film projects through it. It's able to eat through all of the footage that I do in a day. I'm a huge, huge fan. One more thing that I want to talk about before we kind of wrap up here is, I want to just give you an opportunity here to just kind of pitch to the viewers. Like, what is the experience like at the hotel? What, what is your ultimate goal when people come to the hotel when they
when they stay there? Is it the historical experience? I mean, history, you mentioned that you've always loved art. History and art are kind of one in the same. What's the experience like for guests at the hotel? You know, I always want the guests to feel special and get some historical information about the hotel. We have a historical booklet that we share with as many guests as
“possible. It gives them a different appreciation of where they're staying. I think when you read”
about its history. And we do a lot of weddings at Hotel Baker. And so when those couples provide welcome bags for their guests, I always tell them that we offer this complimentary so that their guests receive it and they're welcome back and read about the hotel. That's great. That's great. Especially having it as like a wedding venue. Yeah. And so you're not only are you adding, not only are you learning about the history of the venue itself, but you're adding to that history,
right? You're creating such a special moment for you and your family while you're at this very menu that already has so much history to it. You're a part of that history. Now that's, that's amazing. It's a great place. I mean, there's a wealth of history related to Hotel Baker. I can go on and on
About it.
something new that I haven't read before. You know, we do have a historical museum, a history museum
“of St. Charles that has a wealth of information about the hotel Baker. So, got it. So guys, if you're”
still watching up to this point, I want to go ahead and give you the opportunity here. Where can
people find you if they're looking to follow you on social media, if they're looking for information
“about Hotel Baker, where's your dot com? Where can people find you online? You can find us at”
HotelBaker.com. That's our website. If you want information about events, we do events at
HotelBaker.com. We'll reply as soon as possible. We are on all kinds of social media. We are on
X, which was previously Twitter. I still call it Twitter Tuesday or if you used to call it X, that's a silly name. We're also in TikTok for Reds. What was the Reds? Reds is like the Instagram version of Twitter. I guess Zuckerberg and Elon gotten a fun. I don't know where that is.
“So TikTok, Reds. Of course, Instagram and Facebook are very, very popular. I think we started on Facebook.”
We do have a lot of following and a lot of viewers, especially on our videos that we share. We do a lot of videos of our wedding simply because that's really our staple. That's like a big draw for people. Yeah, I can imagine. Well guys, if you're still here, make sure that you guys are following Roena and Hotel Baker on all of the social media platforms, whether it's Threads, Twitter, I still call it Twitter. Instagram, Facebook, everywhere. Go to hotelbaker.com. If you're
going to book any events, if you're going to book your wedding, shout out to everybody that's getting married. And with that, that is another episode here at Inside Success. We will see you guys in the next one.
