Ken Cham thought he would settle into retirement after a long sales career, but instead found himself as an award-winner in the travel industry.
Cham, an employee in the Blowing Rock Visitor Center, recently received the North Carolina Travel Industry Association Silver Service Award for Exceptional Visitor Service. Cham, who was nominated for the award in a statewide competition by Blowing Rock Tourism Development Authority Executive Director Tracy Brown, received the award at the N.C. Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Winston-Salem two weeks ago.
Cham had worked for corporations like General Electric and Siemens USA, selling products to the electricity industry, and later moved into software sales. He and his wife Marcia, a minister, decided to settle in Blowing Rock upon his retirement. It’s the 14th place he’d lived, with his last stop being in in Boston. He’d previously lived in Hickory for five years so he knew about Blowing Rock and had often visited it, not suspecting one day he’d be on the other side of the information counter.
After he retired from a career in sales and marketing, he found that he wasn’t ready for the proverbial rocking chair on the front porch. “Sitting around the house was getting kind of boring,” he said. “ I saw the ad for the job, applied for it and got it.”
Cham found his career skills matched up with the part-time position, particularly in dealing with people. “This is just a continuation of my sales background and it’s kind of fun to meet different people,” he said. “We get all kinds of people coming through, from people here on a honeymoon to people who are traveling around the world.”
He originally considered keeping a journal of all the strange questions he received, but eventually the strange became commonplace. “Usually they’re trying to find a place where they got the name wrong, or businesses that have changed. It’s the same as in sales—you’re delighted to be helping folks by answering question. I tell people I’m just selling a different product now. I’m selling the town of Blowing Rock.”
The service award was based on an incident last April, when a couple stopped in the Visitor Center wanting to get married on the spot. Cham contacted his wife and she agreed to marry them on the back porch of Cham’s house, while Ken acted as witness and “official photographer.”
“It was a suprise,” he said of the award. “I didn’t know that Tracy Brown had even submitted it. I told my wife and we both laughed and laughed. I guess we didn’t give it a lot of thought. I guess somebody needed some help and we took care of the problem for them.”
“Ken jokes that the only reason he received the award is because he’s married to a retired minister, but that’s not the whole story,” brown said. “Ken is a fantastic employee who represents Blowing Rock very well. He truly is what visitors know and understand about Blowing Rock, a place filled with nice folks who genuinely care about others. We’re very honored that Ken was chosen for this award and we’re blessed to have such great people working at the Visitor Center.”
Cham enjoys promoting the town and local attractions, believing most visitors are looking for fun and relaxation.
“We’ve got a lot of attractions in the area between Tweetsie and Grandfather, and a lot of folks are in town for the events,” he said, noting that not only tourists enjoy the mountains. “It’s a great place to live.”
The Visitor’s Center is located on the US 321 Bypass in Blowing Rock.