Behind the Brand

NCC Employees Say There's No Place Like Home
By Nancy Croft Baker

In June 1974, the nation was reeling from the Watergate scandal, "All in the Family" was the hot TV series, and Muhammad Ali was training for his upcoming "Rumble in the Jungle" with George Foreman. But the event that mattered most to Ray Collins, Audrey Bushrod and Lucinda Jackson was the opening of the Xerox International Center for Training and Management Development (now the National Conference Center).

On June 2, the National Conference Center (NCC) will celebrate 35 years as a premier venue for meetings, education, training and professional development. Collins, Bushrod and Jackson will not only celebrate 35 years of employment there but all the life changes they have experienced along the way.

Back in 1974, the Xerox International Center for Training and Management Development was a secluded enclave on 2,265 acres of undeveloped land just outside Leesburg in rural Loudoun County - the perfect spot to ensure competitive secrets were safe from IBM and other growing IT giants of the day. For residents of Loudoun County, it was a great employment opportunity close to home. Managed by ARAMARK Conference Centers, the complex offered a variety of jobs in hospitality and other support services to maintain the 900-bed facility with onsite cafeteria, lounge, meeting space, training rooms and conference amenities.

Warehouse supervisor Ray Collins was there when the facility was just a skeleton under construction. A newlywed just two years out of Loudoun County High School, he worked as a temporary employee in the payroll office of the construction company developing the campus. As the center neared completion, he landed a job in Xerox's central services building just two miles away, where he worked in the warehouse. Collins' wife Nancy joined the facility's hospitality division a year later.

Collins spent two years in the print shop, working his way up to a job managing training materials logistics, making sure materials were delivered on time to the right place and that classes were properly equipped before training started. That was quite a feat when there were as many as 800 Xerox employees in training every week. But when the company decentralized its training to regional branches in the 1980s, the focus shifted toward hosting special events, conferences and meetings for groups and organizations like the military - and even the likes of IBM. "That was a challenging time, because Xerox didn't need as many folks in the facilities and decided to outsource the print shop and other services," Collins recalls. There were layoffs, and Collins helped move the warehouse inventory to a smaller space on campus.

Working at the main facility has had its perks, though. For example, Collins got to ride the elevator with Redskins running back Clinton Portis, who towered over the 5 foot 4 inch NCC employee. "We got a good laugh out of that," he says. And the time he met Redskins coach George Allen in the gym and later saw coach Joe Gibbs having dinner with NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt in the cafeteria. That was a few years after Xerox sold the facility to current owner Chartres Lodging Group, which gave the aging buildings and grounds a $29 million facelift.

"I enjoy what I'm doing, and I like taking care of our customers," says Collins, who lives in Lovettsville. "We need them to come back." He also appreciates the fact that management has been receptive to his ideas, such as automating the shipping and receiving process.

Colleague Audrey Bushrod is a beneficiary of that good idea. She's a mailroom clerk who has been cross-trained to help Collins in the warehouse, where she learned how to use a computer for the first time.

When Bushrod left her job at an Arlington dry cleaner in 1974 to join the housekeeping staff at the training center, she had three children under age five. Over the next 35 years, she would raise her family, become a grandmother of four and lose her husband and brother. Her colleagues at work became her support system, celebrating birthdays and milestones at the office as well as consoling each other through life's inevitable difficulties. "When my husband died in 1991 and then my brother, it was really hard," says the Aldie resident. "I got a lot of support here, though. Life is good. It's what you make of it."

In the early days, Bushrod made a lot of beds - as many as 30 a day. And she picked up after a lot of messy guests, such as teenagers there for education conferences. "Late at night, they would put furniture on the elevator and ride it up and down," she chuckles. "It was actually pretty funny."

A highlight of Bushrod's tenure was Coretta Scott King's visit several years ago. And she enjoyed watching the Washington Redskins, who once held their training camp there. "They ate a lot," she notes. But the ones who touched her the most were not the celebrities but "the everyday people I work with. They're like real family."

One of those people is Lucinda Jackson, supervisor of housekeeping. They cleaned a lot of rooms together over eight years before Bushrod transferred to the mail room. When Jackson began working with Bushrod in 1974, she was a single mother who left a part-time job at 7-11 to start her first full-time job. Although Jackson is a woman of few words, she beams as she talks about managing a team of 17 housekeepers. She deftly consults her computer to track which rooms have been cleaned, then checks on the laundry room before inspecting the bedding of a random room or two to ensure everything is up to snuff.

Jackson says she loves the variety of every day and the camaraderie of her colleagues. "We have a lot of different nationalities working on our housekeeping team," she says. "I've learned a lot of interesting and really good home remedies from them over the years," says the Sterling resident. "We're all very good friends."

One of Jackson's more memorable moments was getting off the elevator and meeting the late Congressman Sonny Bono. "He was surrounded by Secret Service and was very short," she recalls. "I was so shocked, I couldn't say anything." And like Collins and Bushrod, Jackson fondly remembers the Redskins - although some were neater than others, she confides.

"I never thought I'd be here for 35 years, but they've been very good to me," Jackson says. "I plan to work until I'm unable to walk!"

NCC marketing director Eric Whitson attributes this kind of staying power to top-down retention efforts. "General manager Kurt Krause has a contagious enthusiasm," Whitson says. "He sees the potential in everybody and invests in his people."

Krause is currently investing in the next generation of long-time employees through community outreach and school partnerships like the one with Belmont Ridge Middle School in which students spend part of their day learning the banquet business at NCC. "Our genuine goal is to be the No. 1 employer in Loudoun County," Krause says. "Every month we're celebrating someone who has been here for more than 25 years. I'm constantly blown away by the Rays, Lucindas and the Audreys of our company, who love their jobs and have stayed so long. It's really inspiring."