GM Hale Gives Org Chart Overview at 2024 Board Retreat

The Hot Springs Village POA Board of Directors began its 2024 Board Retreat on Tuesday, April 23, with a public morning session. The retreat continued in the afternoon and through Wednesday, April 24, with closed sessions. The retreat was held in a private room at Diamante Country Club.

Board Chair Joanie Corry opened the meeting, turning it over to General Manager Kelly Hale.

Hale displayed the recently revised Operational Chart. He said they have spent over two years realigning and adjusting the staff to ensure synergy between the departments and the whole POA.

Police Chief Kristi Bennett

Police Chief Bennett is outstanding with her group and is aligned with everything needed. One of the key changes from last year to this year is we moved Community Support and gates under Chief Bennett’s department. Hale feels this makes more sense and eliminates the need to “go across other departments” to discuss things.

Community Support Manager Tom Benfield oversees the gates under Chief Bennett.

Fire Chief Jason Miller

Fire Chief Jason Miller’s organizational chart has remained consistent. “Having four fire stations in the community is a blessing. This helps our insurance rates.”

Tom Heffer, Director of Golf

One key move under Tom Heffer, the Director of Golf, was assigning Tami Jones to the Director of Golf Operations.

Hale stated, “The vision there [in golf] is we have grown our revenue on Stay and Play packages tremendously – from $283,000 five years ago to just under $1.4 M last year. The expectation is we’re going to see higher numbers this year as well.”

“To be able to do those types of things, I need Tom as a Director to focus on revenue generation and customer-facing activities at the counters. We are getting so busy with outside play. Tom’s direction is to be the face of golf and to be there for the customers’ point of view.”

“Adding Tami Jones as the Operations Manager for the courses frees Tom up to focus on pure revenue generation. He still has the responsibility of the courses, but it really adds a new layer to our ability to bring in the revenue we need.”

“Tami will focus on the actual course maintenance and controlling costs, with which she does a phenomenal job. I don’t know who is cheaper – Tami or I, or more frugal, I should say. We try to outdo each other, but she always impresses me with the many good deals she finds for her team and the things that we have needed for a long time to take care of our community. With that, Tami has made a lot of gains quickly. You will continue to see the golf community settle down and move forward.”

Finance Department Controller Jama Lopez

Jama Lopez is the Controller in the Finance Department. Adjustments have been made in Finance, and they are in the process of hiring a staff accountant. Assistant Controller Phyllis Shaddix is being trained to take over the Controller position.

Public Services Director Ken Unger

As departments were realigned, the Public Services Department has grown substantially. Unger now handles all water and wastewater issues. Water and wastewater will be key components by 2026 because major required work will be performed under the umbrella of these two areas. Matt Broom was promoted to Associate Director of Public Services and handles all non-water and non-wastewater issues, such as common properties, lakes, streets, sanitation, etc. Broom has previous experience managing streets and sanitation.

IT Manager Will Rainwater

Hale stated, “Will continues to find cost savings after he has already found cost savings by bundling things together and other ways. He keeps finding solutions.” Because the organization was so big at one time, Rainwater continues to find unneeded phone lines, etc.. Hale said locating these types of things has not been easy.

Director of Parks and Recreation Terry Wiley

“Terry’s department remains the same. He will do a little shuffling, but it will all be the same dollar figure and headcount to better support our community with many of the gains we have made.”

Director of Business Development, Land, and Community Affairs Kevin Sexton

“The change from last year to this year is we added a true business development person, Mindy Maxwell [Business Development and Client Relations Manager]. Mindy has a background in sales. This is something we have never had. When I arrived, the previous model was one individual who sat in the office and didn’t make cold calls or send out letters. We just worked with the Sells Group [advertising agency] and did a few things like that. Nothing against that, but we see a lot of opportunity for growth in the community, not only in rooftops but also in golf revenue.”

Hale said they want to reach a 75-mile radius. “There is more than enough money around the Village to bring in. We will hit small and medium businesses or SMBs and get these folks to come here. What we are looking for is to target them for retreats. We can offer them a meeting room. Tom [Heffer] gives them golf, or Terry gives them pickleball. We will make a half-day outing out of it. We can do those with the amount of space we have. That will bring in groups of 30 or 50 at a time. We will make some revenue off of it.” We will raise utilization rates. This will not affect member play because these retreats will occur in the afternoon, where utilization rates are very low on the golf courses….”At the end of the day, we will have a strong plan because we want to convert those coming in with their company and expect people to buy lots on the way out the door.”

Hale said the main focus with the small to medium businesses is to concentrate on education about the Village. We expect that the word will spread. “Most people don’t believe they can get in here. We want to break that misnomer and do it correctly. The POA will be the sponsor…This isn’t anything new. Hot Springs Village has done this in the past. We found old documentation from 20-some-odd years ago that they had a whole program set up for meeting rooms…We studied the past, looked at what worked and didn’t, and just dusted off the things already there. Away we go! They do take effort, and they do take attention.”

Hale said that Sexton deals with all the lots. Sexton has Chris Hunter and Christina Paratore, both from Land Management, under him.

Director of Human Resources Duane Tarbet

Hale expressed, “Duane has done an outstanding job. He was concerned about being made HR Director, but he is spot on…I had confidence.” Hale said he saw traits in Tarbet that would make him a good HR Director. He has done great with safety, [employee] retention, and onboarding.”

Team effort

“We’ve had a unique structure realignment, and I feel we have synergies between the departments… The teams are getting the work done right now due to cross-functional relationships and working with each other.” A good example is public service employees helping the golf department with course renovations. We can take a team and put them in an area for two days, and they will accomplish more in that time than the Golf Department can. Hale said, “This is no offense to the Golf Department, it is only that they have too many other things going on and they need a little help with recouping some of the big projects that got away from us. This is a team effort.” Click here to read about this.

“If you look at all the restructuring, we have saved money. We have eliminated head counts or repurposed them, which is the way I like to put it. The only increases in payroll have been the COLA allowances we have every year.”

Hale said that for a community of this size, we have a very focused and structured organizational chart with a lot of depth.

The HSVPOA employs around 468 to 470 employees.

Featured image (top of page): (Standing L to R) Will Rainwater, Terry Wiley, Fire Chief Jason Miller; (Seated L to R) Chair Joanie Corry, GM Kelly Hale, Board Director Edsel Frye, Jr.

Hot Springs Village Organizational Chart as of (April 23, 2024)

By Cheryl Dowden