PBN PROVIDENCE BUSINESS NEWS
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CELEBRATING
35 YEARS: 1986-2021
JULY 9-22, 2021
EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS
SPOTLIGHT
Geraldine Barclay King | 15
Tributes | 6
YOUR SOURCE FOR BUSINESS NEWS IN SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND | VOL. 36, NO. 5 | $5
FOCUS: COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE Industrial area on cusp of revival in Pawtucket BY NANCY LAVIN | Lavin@PBN.com
STICKING WITH IT: Victoria Trujillo, standing, checks on diners at 22 Bowen’s Wine Bar & Grille. Trujillo returned to her managerial job at the Newport restaurant after a two-month layoff in 2020 despite fears about contracting COVID-19. PBN PHOTO/KATE WHITNEY LUCEY
HOSPITALITY’S HEADACHE: How to attract, keep workers BY NANCY LAVIN | Lavin@PBN.com
ERIN
WHEN ERIC DAROSA’S FAMILY opened North East Knitting Inc. on Conant Street in Pawtucket, the neighborhood was in rough shape. Many of the historic mill buildings around them were empty. There were smashed windows and trash strewn about. The parking lot across the street was dirt and trash. “You wouldn’t be caught walking down the street,” DaRosa recalled of the atmosphere when his family business set up shop in 1986. SEE PAWTUCKET PAGE 17
Umbdenstock spent her four-month stint of unemployment trying to keep busy. She cooked and cleaned her Coventry apartment and took up several new hobbies. But she did not look for a new job, because she was holding out to return to work at the Providence Marriott Downtown.
So when her boss, hotel general manager Farouk Rajab, offered her a chance to come back, she didn’t hesitate. She worked the front desk, she did laundry, whatever was needed. Her part-time hours were just enough to take her off unemployment benefits but was still a pay cut and a demotion from her former role as a sales coordinator. “It’s not what I pictured myself doing,” the 27-year-old Johnson & Wales University graduate said. “But I never thought it was below me
or a waste of my time or that I was not using my degree.” And it paid off. In February, Umbdenstock was promoted to rooms manager, an opportunity she credited in part to the topsy-turvy world created by COVID-19. But many other hospitality workers have not stuck with the local industry through the pandemic and it’s taking an economic toll, SEE WORKERS
PAGE 12
ONE LAST THING
Erin Pavane Employee expectations shifting | 30
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