A view toward the lake and mountains from Guest Room #5 at the High Hampton Resort, Cashiers, NC.

High Hampton Resort in North Carolina treats their employee a positive way

High Hampton, just outside the small town of Cashiers, NC

It began as small conversations regarding the possibility of Western Carolina University establishing an internship program with High Hampton resort in Cashiers.

Little did Kenny Jordan, assistant professor of hospitality and tourism in WCU’s College of Business, know the magnitude of what those discussions would result in – a partnership establishing the High Hampton Educational Assistance Plan.

Through the plan, High Hampton is looking to employ up to 50 students from both WCU and Southwestern Community College for a variety of positions paying between $12 and $15 per hour. Students working a minimum of 800 hours during a calendar year in which they were enrolled in school will be reimbursed up to $2,650 per semester, and no more than $5,250 in a calendar year for qualified educational expenses, including tuition, fees, and books.

“This program is a great example of the partnerships our faculty forge with businesses and community organizations across Western North Carolina,” WCU Provost Richard Starnes said. “It has important and tangible benefits for both our students and High Hampton resort.”

The partnership was a natural fit, said Scott Greene, High Hampton general manager. “The reputation for quality education, its relationships with their students, and the school’s location really made Western Carolina University the perfect partner for High Hampton,” he said. “Together, we will help create meaningful career movement for students, while providing support for their educational journey.”

High Hampton, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, is the latest venture from Sandy Beall and his family, owners of the celebrated Blackberry Farm and Blackberry Mountain retreats, on the other side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in eastern Tennessee. Beall is betting that, as the world begins to open up, those itching to travel will choose domestic destinations designed for family bonding instead of clocking up countless air miles on the hamster wheel of European capitals.

Beall himself, spry and softly spoken, first tried to buy High Hampton nearly 40 years ago. “I play a long game,” he says, repeatedly. Back then, he recalls, the owners were not ready to sell. “I’d had homes up here since the early ’80s,” he says over coffee in one of the inn’s many well-upholstered nooks. “We inquired about buying it again in, I think, the early ’90s. So I always had a love and affection for the property.”

Beall dictates business mantras with a staccato delivery, his commitment to incremental improvements unrelenting: “We have this saying: ‘Good, better, best, never let it rest.’ But it’s a process. Every year gets a little bit better. You never let up. Constant change. Don’t confuse habits with wisdom, and just never stop improving. That creates magic.”

Now 70 years old, Beall got his start in business at 18 while waiting tables at Pizza Hut in college, quickly winning a promotion to store manager. The owner sold his franchise and awarded Sandy a sum to invest in his own restaurant. In 1972, Beall, then just a college sophomore, opened the first Ruby Tuesday, which eventually grew to a global chain of nearly 900 restaurants. Beall remained at the helm until he left the company in 2012.

In 1976, he and his then-wife, Kreis, bought an old inn, Blackberry Farm. The couple lived in two rooms and, to pay the mortgage, rented out the rest to two local banks to entertain their employees and clients. The inn opened to the public in 1990. Beall took the Ruby Tuesday mass-market model and simply elevated it for a wealthier clientele. “Hospitality is hospitality, whether you’re charging $20, $200, or $2,000,” he says. “Now, depending upon who the customer is, from a demographic standpoint, your menu would be tweaked up; the quality of the ingredients, the level of execution, the level of the room would be different.” Other than adding a zero or two, he says, “it’s really the same business.”

Sources: