By ANN TOINEETA
One Feather Intern
CHEROKEE, N.C. – Brian Marsh has been in the gaming industry for 30 years, managing properties from Missouri to Tennessee and getting them on track to success. Now, he is the senior vice president and general manager of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort.
While Marsh originally started out as a firefighter in Reno, Nev., he transitioned to working in casinos full time. He helped open the French Lick Resort & Casino in French Lick, Ind. and rebranded the Lumière Place casino in St. Louis, Mo. into the Horseshoe casino in addition to other projects. Nearly two years ago, Marsh was asked to come to Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort.
“I knew throughout the years how formidable and how important this property was to Caesars and Harrah’s and how much revenue was generated out of these properties,” he said. “When they said, ‘are you interested?’ It was very easy for me, internally, to say yes.”
Brian Marsh is the senior vice president and general manager of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. (Photo courtesy of Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos)
One value Marsh has learned over the years is the importance of staying in touch with and helping employees on the frontline. He believes this connection is vital to being a good general manager. Whether it’s washing dishes at Amici or cooking in the employee dining room, Marsh steps in to help where he can.
“I am a big believer in building individuals up and building teams and allowing those individuals to take credit for things that are happening,” he said. “I just happen to be the person that can keep things wired together…I try to be very present and on the frontline. I want people to know I’m here. I want to hear from an employee who’s having a bad day. I may not be able to solve their issues, but I want that employee to know that they have a sounding board, and they have a family here without making it too weird for them. The leaders that were able to make that connection that influenced how I am today, that was one thing that I felt was so important.”
This openness also extends to his marketing strategy, which is to simply try everything. While marketing is the hardest part of what he and his team do, being open to trying new things allows them to have the flexibility to make changes. Switching gears when something isn’t working can make a big difference when it comes to getting customers to come back or stay another night at the casino.
“We have to stop doing things that don’t work and we have to try other things,” he said. “Leaders are afraid of that because they feel that that is failure. I look at that completely differently. If something’s not working, the failure is not identifying that it’s not working and not affecting change and going a different direction. A failure is not recognizing that this path is wrong and doing something about it. It’s a legacy that I think is important. It’s not about me, it’s just what this property is all about: maintaining the culture of who this property represents.”
During his time at Harrah’s Cherokee, Marsh has worked on big projects like the rebranding of Wicked Weed into the Soco Smokehouse with a new section dedicated to chicken called The Coop and the rebranding of Brio Italian Grille into Amici Italia. There are also smaller fixes he has worked on to create a better environment for customers like relighting the seven trees in the casino’s grand entry way.
“The fun part about being a leader in one of these roles is that you’re not doing the same thing every single day,” he said. “There’s always something new to tackle. It’s like a Rubix Cube- you figure out one side and then the other side’s messed up, so you have to go to the other side and figure out how to get both sides in line. If you walk into this role and you expect everything to be perfect, you are going to fail.”
Marsh’s work focuses on the whole experience of the casino as a resort, not just the gaming portion, and ensures that every corner of the casino is filled with some kind of game or shop. After making some changes in the casino’s grand entry like relighting the trees and moving around some slot machines, Marsh noticed a difference in activity.
“There is so much activity, sound, music, and people,” he said. “There’s dancing and it now is something when you walk in- from the casino garage, parking lot, and the front entrance- you end up converting right there and the activity makes you feel like you’ve arrived. That’s the stuff that you have to be able to do on a regular basis. Those are the physical changes that we’re going to continue to make.”
At the end of the day, what is most important to Marsh is his family. He has six daughters: a former Navy pilot who now flies for United Airlines, a doctor who works at the Mayo Clinic, a veterinarian who’s also in the Army Reserves, two attorneys, and a scientist with a dual degree in biology and chemistry. Marsh credits his daughters for teaching him about the different pressures women have to face in their lives and the power of never giving up on overcoming struggles.
“It really helped me make sure that I had a clear understanding that every individual has value in their own way and it doesn’t matter who they are, where they come from, what gender they are, and what their beliefs are,” he said. “Everybody is an individual and I learned that from my daughters and from my wife. To this day, every single thing I do, I always reflect back, ‘Okay, is the decision I’m making going to be biased anyway?’ If it is, I need to figure it out. My kids are a huge part of my life. I’ve always said, who needs boys when you have girls like mine.”
Marsh is extremely passionate about adding value to this casino, a place that is so important to the Cherokee people. He describes himself as being very competitive and is motivated by future competing casinos to work hard every day.
“That’s why I get up every single day,” he said. “I haven’t worked this hard since I was in my twenties. It’s because there’s so much to do here. There are so many good things that we can continue to take and do differently…I truly believe that we’ve got a good four, five, six years here of continual change that will continue to position us appropriately so we can always compete. That’s my job and, respectfully, I owe the Cherokee people that.”
