The Airline Team

Betty Anne Latrace-Henderson

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President

 

“Employee engagement” is a term that you won’t hear at Airline Hotels. Not because engagement isn’t high. On the contrary, satisfaction scores are through the roof. But Airline Hotels doesn’t have “employees”. Everyone who works at the company is an associate. In the words of Betty Anne Latrace-Henderson, “it’s just one of the ways we show respect for the people who work with us.” Betty Anne believes it’s important to “take care of your associates and they will take care of your customers and your business.”

 

Betty Anne inherited a visionary gene from her father, Harold Latrace, a man held in warm regard by the people of Saskatoon, who named an arena and a street for him. Harold built the first of Airline Hotel’s properties, a motel that, at the time, was miles north of the city, but close to the airport. When Betty Anne became President in 2000 she expanded on her father’s vision, taking the company from two hotels in Saskatchewan, to five properties in three provinces, with annual revenues of $50 million and nearly 800 associates. In 2009, Profit magazine named her Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneur and, in 2010, Ernst and Young recognized her as Entrepreneur of the Year, Prairie Region.

 

A “people person” in the largest sense of that phrase, Betty Anne believes that Airline Hotels has the responsibility of helping every associate become the best person they can be, so they can influence their work, homes, communities, and cities. “Once they are in the right environment,” says Betty Anne, “people see they can fly.”