Experience

Resume of Experience

Hankamer and Associates has over 45 years experience developing, owning and operating limited and full service hotels of various brands; providing operational and marketing consulting services to hotel and restaurant owners; developing and implementing real estate, hospitality, and food & beverage service concepts.
 

Professional Hotel Management for Third Parties

We have managed dozens of hotels (including restaurants, banquet operations, discos, cocktail lounges, coffee shops, and gift shops) over our forty + years in business, for banks, life insurance companies, savings & loans, and private individuals.

Brands managed include: Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn, Days Inn, Ramada, Radisson, Best Western, Howard Johnson, and others, including numerous independent hotels up to 300 rooms.
 

Western States Experience

  • Developed and owned fourteen Holiday Inns, Best Westerns, and Ramadas in Texas.

  • Developed Hotel Ibis (Accor Group-France) hotels Houston IAH and Dallas DFW

  • Performed site studies, pre-development, and consulting in following markets:

    • Chandler, AZ - Homewood Suites and Hampton for RFS

    • Tusayan, AZ - Holiday Inn Express

    • Salt Lake City, UT - Homewood Suites for RFS

    • Las Vegas, NV - Hampton new development I-15

    • Homewood Suites Conversion from apartment project

  • Albuquerque, NM - Hampton Inn for Lumbermen's Investment Corp

  • Denver, CO - Hampton Inn at DIA for RFS

  • El Paso, TX - Hampton Inn, El Paso – West

  • Ft Lee, NJ (New York City)-Holiday Inn

  • Rockford, IL (Chicago area)-Holiday Inn

  • Shreveport/Bossier City, LA – America’s Best Value Inn

  • Austin, TX - Hampton Inn for RFS on I-35 South

  • Ventura, Costa Mesa, Beverly Hills, Modesto, and Anaheim, CA - Consulting with Linquist and Craig hotels on marketing hotels

  • Sacramento, Pleasanton, Concord, CA - Site selection studies

  • Ambergris Caye, Belize-Victoria House

Development Southwest Hotel Management (SHM)

  • Hampton Inn Laredo, TX - for RFS (1995).

  • Hampton Inn Houston, TX Hobby Airport - for RFS (1996).

  • Hampton Inn San Antonio, TX Downtown Riverwalk - w/ Phil McNeill et al for own account (1995).

  • Hampton Inn Sulphur-Lake Charles, LA - for own account

  • Hampton Inn – Beaumont, TX

  • Hampton Inn & Suites – Houston Medical Center

Hotel and General Commercial Real Estate Brokerage

Broker since 1967 with over a hundred million dollars in value of sales of land syndications, office buildings, hotels, apartments, retail centers, farms & ranches, and other real estate, including sales in Colorado, Alabama, Louisiana, but primarily in Texas.

Food & Beverage Consulting

As president/COO of Southwest Inns, managed $15 million in annual food & beverage sales (1980 dollars) spread over fourteen hotels with some 700 employees; served for eight years as Director of McFaddin Ventures, American Stock Exchange Company, with club/disco-restaurants in 45 locations coast to coast; concepted and owned Texas Steak Ranch (200 seats)-themed ‘ethnic Texas’ steakhouse/Houston. Writes monthly Hankamer Restaurant Update which is distributed to over 4,200 real estate professionals monthly by print and online.

Industry and Professional Relationships

Attendance at annual trade show and investment conferences over past thirty years, including UCLA Lodging and Investment Seminar, New York University Investment Conference, Scottsdale Lodging Conference; attendance at franchise conferences such as Holiday Inns (twenty-five consecutive Holiday Inn Worldwide Conferences plus deep involvement in International Association of Holiday Inns, including presidency in 1987-88), Ramada, Best Western, Promus Hotels, and Hilton Hotels Accor; attendance at several Mexican Hotel and Motel Association conferences as guest and speaker; attendance at five International Hotel Association conferences (Prague, Budapest, Stockholm, Chicago and Seville) and Rapporteur and speaker at the Stockholm Conference; continuing education / numerous courses.  Mr. Hankamer has written for over fifteen years a monthly column “Commercial Buzz” for Real Estate Directory News (RED News), which reaches 45,000 real estate professionals statewide on a monthly basis.

Principal and President
Ray Hankamer, Jr. - Licensed Texas Real Estate Broker

Mr. Hankamer has a long and distinguished career in the hospitality industry, beginning with his position at age twenty-two as the general manager of the Holiday Inn opposite Houston’s NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. Mr. Hankamer has supervised the concepting and development and operation of some two dozen full and limited service hotels, and built his original company, SW Inns, to a company with 800 employees and sales of $35,000,000 by the early 1980s. Mr. Hankamer has traveled to over 70 countries for business and pleasure, and is fluent in French. He holds a BA degree from U. of Texas and studied at U. of Geneva, Switzerland, and The Goethe Institute-Munich. He did graduate business studies at U. of Houston. Mr. Hankamer has authored numerous published articles on hotel keeping, which have appeared in the Cornell Quarterly, Mortgage Banking Magazine (cover article), the Houston Chronicle, and other hotel/restaurant trade journals and newspapers.

Mr. Hankamer has been involved in the following professional associations as a Texas hotel owner and broker:

  • International Association of Holiday Inns (I.A.H.I.) – Board of Directors 1983-1990;

    • Secretary/Treasurer 1984-85; Vice-President 1985-86;

    • Chairman Advertising & Marketing Committee for worldwide system 1984-86;

    • First Vice President 1986-87;

    • President 1987-88;

    • Past Presidents Council 1989-90.

  • International Hotel Association – Chairman – Environment Committee – 1991 Congress

  • Rapporteur – Stockholm; Chevalier des Amis de l’Hotellerie Internationale.

  • University of Houston – Advisory Board for National Center for Research in the Hospitality Industry.

  • Hilton School of Hotel & Restaurant Management/University of Houston – Guest Lecturer

  • Scenic Houston – Board of Directors

  • McFaddin Ventures – Board of Directors

  • Interfirst Bank Fannin – Board of Directors

  • Trees for Houston – Advisory Board

  • Multiple Franchisors Owners Association – Member, Chairman 1991

  • Lodging & Food Service Industry Research Institute – Advisory Board

  • Greater Houston Hotel & Motel Association – Director 1993

  • River Oaks Mens Breakfast Club – Director & Speakers Chairman

  • Woods at Hudson Townhome Association – Director; President

  • Sterling Bank-Port of Houston-Business Development Board

  • Sterling Bank-Champions Forest-Business Development Board

  • Society for the Performing Arts – Advisory Director

  • Neighborhood Centers, Inc. – Committee Member

  • Lamar High School Alumni – Board of Directors

  • Association of Commercial Real Estate (ACRP) – Board of Directors

  • Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) – Board of Directors

  • Better Houston – Board of Directors

  • Harris County Historical Society – Board of Directors

Mr. Hankamer has published articles in the following publications:

  • Lodging Hospitality Magazine

  • Houston Chronicle

  • Hotels Magazine

  • The Baylor Line

  • Houston Business Journal

  • University of Texas Daily Texan

  • Mortgage Banking Magazine

  • Tanglewood Magazine

  • The Cornell Quarterly

  • River Oaks Magazine

  • Hotel & Motel Management Magazine

  • Real Estate Directory News - Monthly Columnist – Monthly Over 15 Years

  • Hankamer Restaurant Update – Monthly Over 16 Years