Ralph Hitz

Ralph Hitz
Ralph Hitz pictured in Eminent Americans 1936
Born	(1891-03-01)1 March 1891 Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Died	12 January 1940(1940-01-12) (aged 48) New York City, New York, United States

Ralph Hitz (1 March 1891 - 12 January 1940) was a pioneer in the hotel industry, whose ideas for marketing and customer service became the industry standard for luxury lodging. During the 1930's he was the head of the National Hotel Management Company, the largest hotel organization in the United States at the time.

Born in Vienna, Austria, on 1 March 1891, Hitz started his career as an elevator boy at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna when he was fourteen after he'd ran away from school. His family eventually found him and returned him to school as his father wanted him to be an architect. However, on a family trip to the United States he ran away from home three days after his family arrived in New York in 1906. He made his way to New Mexico and started as a busboy at a small hotel in Lumberton. He spent the next nine years working in restaurants and hotels around the nation, then got into hotel management. He was first made a hotel manager in 1926 at the Fenway Hall Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1927, Hitz was made the manager of Cincinnati's Hotel Gibson, and within two years, he had more than tripled the hotel's net income.

When the 2,500 room New Yorker Hotel prepared to open, Hitz was hired to manage the new venture, which opened on January 2, 1930, weeks after the stock market crash. Hitz's ability to turn a profit during the depression led the hotel's mortgage holder, Manufacturers Trust, to hiring him to control all of its hotels. In 1932, the National Hotel Management Company(NMH) was created, with Hitz as the NHM president. By the time of Hitz's death at 48, the NHM managed the New Yorker, the Lexington and the Belmont Plaza hotels (New York); the Congress Hotel(Chicago); the Netherland Plaza(Cincinnati); Adolphus Hotel (Dallas); the Van Cleve (Dayton); the Book-Cadillac (Detroit); the Nicollet (Minneapolis); The New York Municipal Airport Restaurants (New York) and the Eastern Slope Inn (North Conway, New Hampshire)..