GERMANTOWN, Tennessee—McNeill Lodge Firm (MHC) and McNeill Funding Group (MIG) introduced the institution of the Mark A. Ricketts Memorial Scholarship at The College of Memphis Kemmons Wilson Faculty of Hospitality & Resort Administration. Born in Arkansas, however raised in Memphis from the age of two, Kemmons Wilson was the founding father of the lodge chain Vacation Inn within the Fifties and different enterprise enterprises.
Devoted to the reminiscence of Mark Ricketts, who co-founded McNeill Lodge Firm in 2014 with Phillip H. McNeill, Jr., the scholarship will support no less than one undergraduate scholar, starting in 2025, dedicated to a profession in hospitality. Ricketts handed away on November 2, 2022, after a battle with ALS.
Working with the hospitality college, the scholarship was established by the efforts of Brent McDowell, MIG government vice chairman, enterprise growth; and Rick West, long-time good friend of Mark Ricketts and vice chairman, gross sales/accomplice at hospitality advisor Industrial Inexperienced Options.
“Mark was a lifelong accomplice and good friend, in addition to an distinctive, inspirational chief. He believed in empowering all folks in our business and society. In his reminiscence, we hope this scholarship contributes to the following era of hospitality leaders,” stated Phillip H. McNeill, Jr., government chairman of McNeill Funding Group, LLC and of McNeill Lodge Firm, LLC.
“I by no means keep in mind him not being sort. Anybody with whom he ever got here in touch was higher for having identified him,” West stated. “He can be humbled and thrilled by this scholarship in his reminiscence. He liked the lodge business and by no means uninterested in making an attempt to raised it by a novel mixture of high-level expertise and openness to vary. An incredible hotelier, however a greater man.”
