Julie Johnson vividly remembers being 16 years old when the manager of Mr. Pancake, a Wisconsin Dells restaurant owned by her father, unexpectedly walked out in the midst of a busy summer. “The restaurant was serving 2,500 people a day and was open from morning until night. Everything was made from scratch, and just the ordering alone was a monumental task,” she says.

Yet Julie’s father, Chuck Thompson, asked her to start running the business. “Most of the women who worked as cooks were 40, 50, 60 years old, and here I was, a 16-year-old kid. Yet they respected me because they saw I was a hard worker. I would never expect someone to do a job I wouldn’t do myself,” Julie says.

That strong work ethic has carried over to her successful co-ownership and management of Wintergreen Resort & Conference Center in the Dells. Originally called the Kennel Club Inn & Suites, Wintergreen got its new name after the dog track next door closed down.

Julie quickly realized that the hotel needed a new image.

“My husband and I went to Disney World and stayed in every hotel with waterparks, while our kids were trying out all of the slides,” she says. “One of the outdoor waterparks was called Blizzard Beach. They were starting to ‘theme’ hotels then, but I didn’t want something tropical. So we chose a snow, penguins and polar bear theme.”

While summer in the Dells is well known as a family tourist season, Julie spends much of her time catering to customers the rest of the year. “From September until June, our predominant business is meetings and conventions, corporate outings, weddings, and family reunions,” she says. The Dells, she says, is overbuilt so in order for a smaller resort to succeed, management needs to be creative.

In Wintergreen’s case, Julie spends a lot of time giving customers the personal touch she believes many of the larger resorts can’t provide. “With weddings, for example, we have flower centerpieces that we will put on the tables. This saves people hundreds of dollars in floral expenses. We also take the gift bags up to people’s rooms and put in nice chairs for when they have their gift openings. We make people feel like we’re really servicing them – not just hurrying them to get them out of here,” she says.

For corporate outings, “if the meeting planner says the vice-president and president are coming, we will always upgrade their rooms to rooms with private whirlpools. A lot of people who come here all the time are bankers. They’re on a first-name basis with everyone at the front desk. If they get here and find they need something, we’ll run out and get it for them. When you have a huge facility, you just can’t do that,” she adds.

Wintergreen also does a lot of “packaging,” and many businesses will book meetings that include golf outings or an outing to a nearby winery. Couples in their mid-40s and older who stay for a weekend will often book as part of a shopping, dinner theatre or spa package.

Last summer’s flooding in the area, the price of gas, newer facilities in the Dells and the general economy have all had an impact on Wintergreen. “Our growth has been steady ever since we went into the meeting business, but now it’s getting tough,” Julie says. “I wouldn’t say that right now we are growing, but we are holding our own.”

What that means is that she is even more determined to come up with new packaging ideas and make sure her customers continue to feel that Wintergreen provides a personal touch. “You can’t just be a hotel today,” she says. “You have to be something more.”