Jefferson Lakeside is returning to its old management structure after a few years working with an outside firm. Photos by Michael Schwartz.
Faced with the departures of two top management staff and a massive merger in the golf industry, a local country club is taking matters into its own hands.
Jefferson Lakeside Country Club is going back to being a self-managed club, choosing to part ways with third-party management firm Sequoia Golf after a three-year contract that ends Dec. 31. The decision means the century-old institution will now be guided by various member-run boards and committees.
The club, located at 1700 Lakeside Ave., has also hired a new general manager to lead it into its next phase. Bob Foster, who had previous stints managing Viniterra, Birkdale and Brandermill, was hired last week to replace Martin Thompson.
Thompson, who was brought in by Sequoia, announced his resignation this summer to take a job at software firm NSF Hospitality. His departure preceded that of membership sales rep Sandy Oliver, who recently left for the Foundry Golf Club in Powhatan.
“It’s been a pretty hectic time,” Jefferson Lakeside president Carl DeRubeis said.
The personnel changes came while the club was several months into negotiating a potential new contract with Sequoia, which had just recently been acquired by industry giant ClubCorp.
The club is located at 1700 Lakeside Ave.
ClubCorp is a publicly traded company that owns and manages hundreds of courses and clubs around the country. Sequoia was a smaller firm out of Atlanta.
Their merger played a role in Jefferson Lakeside’s decision, DeRubeis said.
“As we approached the end of the three-year contract, we went through an evaluation of what we thought we should do,” he said. “The merger caused some concern because Sequoia was kind of a boutique, whereas ClubCorp is this giant.”
The changes follow several prosperous years at the club that began soon after it was approached by Sequoia in 2012. At that time, membership was dwindling – down to about 170, DeRubeis said – and its then-general manager had just died of a heart attack.
“We were left with no general manager and were unsure of what the next step was going to be,” DeRubeis said.
With a temporary contract that eventually led to the three-year deal, Sequoia took on management of nearly every facet the day-to-day business of the club. Even Jefferson Lakeside’s employees are technically employees of Sequoia.
And with Thompson and eventually Oliver on board, the club’s membership ballooned to more than 400 golf members and 600 total members.
The club has lost some members in recent weeks since the changes were announced, but DeRubeis said it’s hard to say whether those departures are related to the recent decisions or are just seasonal attrition at the end of the summer.
Going back to being self-managed is no easy feat. Volunteer members like DeRubeis, who has been a member for more than a decade, will take on more responsibility, especially compared to the last three years under Sequoia.
“It’s one of the primary concerns I had throughout the process,” DeRubeis said. “As a board and with our committees, I think that we became a little bit lax over the last three years. To some degree, you hand the keys to the third-party management company and say, ‘Go run the club.’”
Taking back the reins of daily business is where Foster’s experience will come into play – his first day on the job as general manager is Oct. 6.
Being independently run isn’t new territory for Jefferson Lakeside. DeRubeis said it had that structure for the first 97 years of its existence.
“A big part is we just wanted to go back and have a greater level of control over what we do and how we do it,” he said.
Jefferson Lakeside is returning to its old management structure after a few years working with an outside firm. Photos by Michael Schwartz.
Faced with the departures of two top management staff and a massive merger in the golf industry, a local country club is taking matters into its own hands.
Jefferson Lakeside Country Club is going back to being a self-managed club, choosing to part ways with third-party management firm Sequoia Golf after a three-year contract that ends Dec. 31. The decision means the century-old institution will now be guided by various member-run boards and committees.
The club, located at 1700 Lakeside Ave., has also hired a new general manager to lead it into its next phase. Bob Foster, who had previous stints managing Viniterra, Birkdale and Brandermill, was hired last week to replace Martin Thompson.
Thompson, who was brought in by Sequoia, announced his resignation this summer to take a job at software firm NSF Hospitality. His departure preceded that of membership sales rep Sandy Oliver, who recently left for the Foundry Golf Club in Powhatan.
“It’s been a pretty hectic time,” Jefferson Lakeside president Carl DeRubeis said.
The personnel changes came while the club was several months into negotiating a potential new contract with Sequoia, which had just recently been acquired by industry giant ClubCorp.
The club is located at 1700 Lakeside Ave.
ClubCorp is a publicly traded company that owns and manages hundreds of courses and clubs around the country. Sequoia was a smaller firm out of Atlanta.
Their merger played a role in Jefferson Lakeside’s decision, DeRubeis said.
“As we approached the end of the three-year contract, we went through an evaluation of what we thought we should do,” he said. “The merger caused some concern because Sequoia was kind of a boutique, whereas ClubCorp is this giant.”
The changes follow several prosperous years at the club that began soon after it was approached by Sequoia in 2012. At that time, membership was dwindling – down to about 170, DeRubeis said – and its then-general manager had just died of a heart attack.
“We were left with no general manager and were unsure of what the next step was going to be,” DeRubeis said.
With a temporary contract that eventually led to the three-year deal, Sequoia took on management of nearly every facet the day-to-day business of the club. Even Jefferson Lakeside’s employees are technically employees of Sequoia.
And with Thompson and eventually Oliver on board, the club’s membership ballooned to more than 400 golf members and 600 total members.
The club has lost some members in recent weeks since the changes were announced, but DeRubeis said it’s hard to say whether those departures are related to the recent decisions or are just seasonal attrition at the end of the summer.
Going back to being self-managed is no easy feat. Volunteer members like DeRubeis, who has been a member for more than a decade, will take on more responsibility, especially compared to the last three years under Sequoia.
“It’s one of the primary concerns I had throughout the process,” DeRubeis said. “As a board and with our committees, I think that we became a little bit lax over the last three years. To some degree, you hand the keys to the third-party management company and say, ‘Go run the club.’”
Taking back the reins of daily business is where Foster’s experience will come into play – his first day on the job as general manager is Oct. 6.
Being independently run isn’t new territory for Jefferson Lakeside. DeRubeis said it had that structure for the first 97 years of its existence.
“A big part is we just wanted to go back and have a greater level of control over what we do and how we do it,” he said.