From front desk clerk to Park MGM GM: Andy Meese on 27 years at MGM Resorts

Andy Meese has spent nearly his entire adult life inside MGM Resorts International properties.

The senior vice president and general manager of Park MGM hotel-casino started as an on-call front desk clerk at Treasure Island when he was 19. Nearly 27 years later, after stops at several Las Vegas resorts and in corporate leadership roles, Meese reached what he describes as an ultimate career goal: running one of the company’s Strip properties.

At Park MGM, Meese oversees a resort occupying a distinctive place in MGM Resorts’ Las Vegas portfolio. The roughly 3,000-room property includes The Reserve, a higher-end hotel formerly known as NoMad, sits across from T-Mobile Arena and is the Strip’s only fully smoke-free casino resort. Meese describes Park MGM as a mid-tier property with a boutique feel that can draw from entertainment, conventions, gaming and a collection of restaurants and bars.

Meese recently sat down with the Las Vegas Review-Journal to discuss his leadership philosophy, why he spends time walking the casino floor, Park MGM’s place in the broader MGM Resorts portfolio and the perks of being a unique property.

Portions of the interview have been edited for clarity and brevity.

You’ve spent almost 27 years with MGM Resorts. What are some of the core tenets of the management and leadership philosophy you’ve developed during that time?

Andy Meese: Most of it comes around servant leadership. We’re very focused on the employee base. I can bring all these guest experiences to life, but ultimately, it’s our team members that do that. So really making sure we understand this and make our teams feel valued, respected, appreciated. We’re big on empowering our employees to be able to take care of any guest situation, so that, to me, is foundational.

You’re a general manager who spends time walking the floor. Why is that important to you?

Meese: You’ve got to be able to see, feel, hear what’s going on in your property. It’s important for me to be able to go up and talk to an EVS porter or a dealer or a cocktail server and just say hello, see how they’re doing. We find out so many things — what’s going well and where the opportunities are — just being on the floor. We can be strategic and think we know what should be done at these properties, but until you’re actually on the floor seeing it, feeling it, hearing it, you really don’t get a good understanding or pulse of what’s really working and not at your property.

MGM Resorts properties once operated more independently from one another. What does the company’s more collaborative approach look like today?

Meese: We’ve done a great job now realizing, how do we leverage each of them individually, but then also together to get the most out of all of them collectively? We do a lot of cross-marketing between the properties. If you’re in a guest room at Aria, you may see an ad for Sammy Hagar at Dolby Live. We’ve clearly created a culture around here about, how do we share best practices? If I’m doing something well, maybe it’s in terms of the guest experience or an outlet that is doing well, how can I share that at the other properties and vice versa?

Park MGM’s location puts you next to T-Mobile Arena and in the middle of several other MGM properties. How does that shape how you operate the resort?

Meese: Really, center Strip, connected to all of our luxury properties, obviously T-Mobile Arena is right across the street. My whole corridor is thriving constantly, so how I activate this property is absolutely essential. If it’s the Golden Knights — I wish you were here over the Stanley Cup run, this place was humming — what we’ve got going at our bars or lounges is really focused around hockey and the Golden Knights. But at the same token, if we’ve got something different at Dolby Live, what kind of music are we playing in the casino or what sort of drink specials are we offering to cater to that demographic more? We meet regularly and figure out how we want to program and activate this property with what’s going on in the corridor.

Park MGM remains unusual in Las Vegas as a smoke-free casino resort. Has that been a challenge?

Meese: Candidly, it’s not. It is not a challenge at all. I would say nine out of 10 guests that stay here are promoters of our property, and one of the reasons why they love it — on top of obviously the employees and the service — is the non-smoking status. It is a huge positive thing for our property. Customers love it. We do think it’s something that is a differentiator for our property and for our company.

There’s been a lot of discussion around affordability and value in Las Vegas. Where does Park MGM fit into that conversation?

Meese: We’re in a really great position, and I think we believe Park MGM is a unique sort of boutique-feel, style property. We’ve got 3,000 rooms and suites; it feels a little smaller than some of the bigger boxes. We cater to a wide array of demographics. Park MGM is really part of our mid-tier collection, so it’s a great room product, level of service and quality is top-notch, but it also is at a price point that can be approachable by many customers. We’re in a great position where we can really cater to multiple lines of the demographic depending on what’s going on in the city.

Andy Meese

Age: 45

Hometown: Southern California. Moved to Las Vegas with family in 1995 at age 14.

Education: Cimarron-Memorial High School; UNLV, accounting and finance.

First job: Dishwasher at JAMMS Restaurant in Summerlin.

Favorite Las Vegas restaurant outside a casino: Vintner Grill in Summerlin. "An oldie but goodie."

Favorite vacation spot: Laguna Beach, California. "The beach is always home to me."

Favorite movie: Wall Street (1987)