How I Made It: Ernest Wooden Jr.
The gig: Ernest Wooden Jr., 66, is president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board. He took the position in January 2013, to replace retiring chief Mark Liberman. Before starting his current position, Wooden worked for nearly 50 years in the hospitality industry, starting as a bellboy at age 16 at the Sheraton Russell hotel in New York City.
Setting a goal: Wooden quickly announced his goal as head of the tourism board: to draw 50 million visitors a year to Los Angeles County. In the year he took the job, the county drew 42.2 million visitors. That number jumped to 45.6 million visitors last year. If L.A. reaches the goal, he said, the 50 million visitors would generate $1.7 billion in taxes and support 528,000 jobs.
A humble beginning: Wooden grew up one of five children, raised by a single mother in the gritty Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. To keep the cold out of the family apartment, Wooden spread wet newspapers on the windows with a butter knife. In the summer, Wooden and his siblings sat on the fire escape to get a break from the heat. They strapped themselves to the fire escape landing with belts to keep from falling off. “Because of my humble upbringings and because I had to scrape through all of this, it gave me a different perspective about my work and about myself,” he said. “There are no shortcuts. Work harder than the next guy, and the people above you will recognize you.”
Road scholar: Wooden’s mother, a Jehovah’s Witness, urged him to be a missionary and convinced him to turn down scholarship offers to Pace and Duke universities. Instead, he worked his way up in the hotel industry while taking courses at various colleges. On his first day of work as a bellhop, earning just $2.01 an hour, he got a $10 tip for helping a couple take their luggage from a cab into the hotel. “I thought I had hit the jackpot,” he said. He combined his various college credits to earn a bachelor’s degree and later a master’s degree in hotel administration from Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey. Wooden is working to complete his doctorate in business administration at the International School of Business in Paris.
Keeping humble: At age 6, Wooden accompanied his mother, a maid, to her house-cleaning jobs. At one job near Coney Island, he helped her carry a large rug up two flights of stairs to beat it clean with a bat. Wooden said that memory reminds him to show respect to the staff who do menial work in the hotel industry.
Moving up: At 21, Wooden was unexpectedly promoted from assistant auditor to chief auditor of the Park Sheraton Central in New York City when another auditor suddenly retired and a second auditor was indicted. Wooden moved through the ranks at several hotel companies, including Omni, Promus and Hilton, where he reached the position in 2005 of executive vice president in charge of 10 global brands, including the Waldorf-Astoria, Hilton, Doubletree and Embassy Suites. At Hilton, he became the highest-ranking African American in the hotel industry. Over the years, Wooden said he has come across people who assume that he has advanced primarily because of his race, not because of his skills or worth ethic. The perception “was definitely a factor in my career,” he said. “I’ve always accepted that you have to be twice as good to get half as much.”
He loves L.A.: Although he didn’t grow up in Los Angeles, Wooden is called upon to be the loudest cheerleader for the city. He has no problem doing that. “L.A. is the most optimistic place in the world,” he said. “People come here to find themselves, to invent themselves and, in many ways, to reinvent themselves. We are optimistic.” He said he still battles preconceived notions about excessive crime and traffic in L.A., and he counters by talking about the diversity, the sunshine and the optimism. “We are extremely diverse,” he said. “Most Angelenos can eat with chopsticks.”
Personal: Wooden is married to Annice, his wife of 38 years. He has two daughters and a son with his current wife and a daughter from a previous marriage. He also has four grandchildren. Last year, Ebony magazine named Wooden to its Power 100 list, representing the 100 most inspiring African Americans in the country.
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