“The story goes that after they got married, my parents spent every dollar she made modelling on an around-the-world trip, which was pretty brave of them in the 1950s,” says Grossman. After their big journey, his parents founded their first hotel project in the 1960s.
John Grossman, 44, is the CEO of Scottsdale, Arizona-based Marc & Rose Hospitality, whose portfolio of 14 properties includes the Arizona Grand Hotel and Resort in Phoenix and La Playa Hotel, a newly revamped boutique hotel in Carmel-By-the-Sea, California. Before starting his career as a hospitality executive, Grossman travelled the world as a competitive kayaker and surfer. He won the Rabioux River Rodeo on the Durance River in Southeastern France and the Surf Kayak World Championship in County Sligo, Ireland.
As he mostly travels weekly around the US West, visiting his properties and looking for additions, Grossman still makes time for surf trips; he has just returned from his ninth visit to New Zealand. He inherited a love for travel from his parents; his mother was a model and crowned Miss California in 1956. While starring in a cigarette commercial on a Hawaiian beach, she met his father when she picked him out of the crowd to be her tandem surf partner in the ad.
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