15 minute read
Maryles Casto
GLORIA DUFFY: Growing up on a plantation in the Philippines, fascinated by flying and travel, Maryles started her career as a flight attendant for Philippine Airlines, and she has over 40 years of experience in the travel industry. With tremendous determination, focus and grit, from a $1,500 startup to a $200 million company, her journey with Casto Travel has been a fascinating one. Her company grew as she worked—from the time they were startups—with Silicon Valley tech giants including Intel, Apple and Kleiner Perkins, and of course, with their colorful leaders like Steve Jobs and Andy Grove.
Maryles, it seems that you used the pandemic time in a very productive way, to write your book and get it published MARYLES CASTO: Yes, I did. This was a book that I wanted to write many years ago, because of the experiences I really wanted to share. In many ways, it was a way of saying thank you to everybody that participated and made this journey of mine a really exciting one. DUFFY: So let’s start by asking you about the title, A Hole in the Clouds. What does that mean? CASTO: When I was a little girl, as you said, we were raised on a sugar plantation and my father had a small airplane. He would be flying from one place to the other, and he would take the children flying with him.
None of my brothers and sisters really enjoyed flying as much as I did. So we would take off in this plane, and my father’s assignment to me was always to look for the hole in the clouds, because he felt that if we do that, we would go on a smoother flight and conditions were better and that we would do acrobatic maneuvers, which I loved. That became my love affair for air travel. That became a natural transition for me as I was growing up, that travel was going to be very much a part of my my life.
As I grew up and I became a flight attendant, it was just normal; that was an easy transition, because at that time there were really no job opportunities for women at that age except being a flight attendant. I really wanted to serve people. And again, I loved flying. It just became very natural that that was the career I chose. DUFFY: I don’t want to lose the story of your childhood and growing up in the Philippines, but it does seem like a hole in the clouds is a metaphor for finding opportunities and moving through them. So I want to get back to that. But tell us what it was like growing up. Your family had a sugar plantation and also a coconut plantation. And you had, what, seven kids in your family? CASTO: Yes. Three sisters and four brothers. But when we had to go to school, we really didn’t spend a lot of time [together], except during the summers and Christmas holidays, because we had to go to different provinces to get to school. But it was so much fun.
My grandfather was from Switzerland;
he left Switzerland when he was 18 years old to find his fortune. He ended up in the Philippines and started the sugar plantation. During that time, it was tradition where the people on the farm would pay tribute to the patron. During Christmas, he was on the balcony receiving all the people and gifts. The daughter of the foreman sang to him, and he fell in love with my grandmother. That was my Filipino grandmother. Growing up, we used to see paintings of them in each side of the hallway.
But then my grandmother, after they had seven children, passed away. My grandfather went back to Switzerland. And lo and behold, the girlfriend he left behind when he moved to the Philippines was also widowed with seven kids.
So he married her and brought her back to the Philippines, and she was the one who raised my mother. DUFFY: So what was that like again to grow up? You sort of ran around. You had the run of the countryside. And what about school? How did you go to school? CASTO: Really we did not until we were
boarders, so we had to go to different provinces. [The girls] went to Bacolod City to a girls’ school and the boys went to Ateneo, which is in Cagayan de Oro, and that’s where they were. We were all boarders, because there were no schools [near our home].
After that, my mother decided she was going to buy a house in Cebu City, and that’s where the family was. This is doing our high school days, but really mostly in the boarding class. We grew up in boarding
MARYLES CASTO: A HOLE IN THE CLOUDS
SHE BUILT HER TRAVEL BUSINESS FROM A
$1,500 startup into a $200 million company, serving the needs of the tech industry. Here, she tells how she transformed her life from unemployed flight attendant into the CEO of one of the most successful travel companies in the country, and of the interesting characters she has met along the way. From the November 15, 2021 program “Maryles Casto: My Journey from the Clouds to Silicon Valley CEO.” Part of our Good Lit series, underwritten by the Bernard Osher Foundation. MARYLES CASTO, Chairman and CEO, MVC Solutions; Author, A Hole in the Clouds: From Flight Attendant to Silicon Valley CEO In Conversation with Dr. GLORIA DUFFY, President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club of California
—MARYLES CASTO
schools. DUFFY: So you graduated from high school, and you said there were not opportunities for women at that point. What were your alternatives, and how did you go on to become a flight attendant? CASTO: My sister and my cousins were all flight attendants. My uncle was vice president of Philippine Airlines at that time, and there were no [other] job opportunities. And flight attendants at the time really had their stature. You know, everybody wanted to be a flight attendant, because you wear uniforms. At that time, we had two month’s training—not like today—on knowing how to address clients’ anticipation, and all the little details on wine and cheese and food and how you serve.
It was a finishing school, very much, of the industry. By the time you finished, you really were adapted to taking care of clients. My love for personal service—really, it had enhanced the feeling I had of, This is really what I wanted to do. DUFFY: You had a little bit of a background as a rebel, if I recall. You have some stories about Catholic school. CASTO: I hated school. I really did. On the farm, my mother was really not very strict, but my sister was very strict, but we just had to run around. We did. We rode the water buffaloes, and we dived and we climbed trees. We were very wild in many ways and undisciplined. And then you go to school and the nuns were just very disciplinarian, and I didn’t like that. I mean, I got very restless in class and I was very naughty— very, very naughty. They were running out of punishments for me.
One time I did something really bad, I’m sure. So the nuns were going to discipline me and had me run around with eight wood wastebaskets on top of my head, to shame me. But I decided, “You know what? I’m [not] going to have them shame me.” I just went to each of the classrooms, started dancing around and singing, and before I knew it, everybody was participating. So that kind of discipline turned back.
I always have this thing about no rules. I want to do it my way. That was showing my independence. DUFFY: You met a young man and you ended up coming to the U.S. Tell us that story. CASTO: Yes, I did. I had never dated an American. My girlfriend was one of the top models in the Philippines; she was dating a lot of Americans. She invited me to a party and I met him. I had seen a picture of him before—a very attractive man. And I just went, “Oh, wow, this is really somebody I want to meet.”
So I did have a blind date with him, and we ended up just talking. It was just unbelievable. I had never really dated anybody aside from my group. He really listened. We had great conversation, and I just knew at the end of the day that I was going to marry him. Of course, he had no idea about that—women decide. I started to tell my father, “I think you need to pay attention to this young man that I’m going to marry.” And we did.
We had the wedding in the Philippines, and then we moved to this country. And I have to tell you, I was very unprepared. You know, flying in the United States as a flight attendant, you saw things. But living here is actually very different, because I had to become an American wife; I learned all the things that I was unprepared for, learning how to cook, learning how to iron. Oh my God, I thought, “This is just [too much],” you know?
We didn’t have a lot of money, because he was the student who was trying to get back to school. So I knew that I had to make some changes.
My dad was very patient with me. He made it easier for me. I remember when we [had] an apartment down south and I would wait for him to come home because I had no friends. I was so lonely, and the only person who made friends was the landlady who owned the apartment. She would come up every day and she would tell me, “Honey, it’s time.” And I would go downstairs and watch roller derby. [Laughter.] That was our entertainment. She was really kind. She was trying to teach me; a lot of the vocabulary she used were not things that she would normally say, but she was my friend and I will always remember her. She took an interest in me, trying to teach me. Then I decided I needed to do more. I needed to be independent, because I was very concerned about that.
In the meantime, my parents came to visit and also to see how I was doing. I think my father, more than anything else, wanted to be sure that I was in the right place—and because he was so against this marriage. And then I think I wanted to show him that I can make it happen. And that’s really what we did. . . . I had to go back to work. I had no training except being a flight attendant. At that time, you couldn’t be married and fly. That’s why I would no longer be with the airlines when we moved to this country.
I started working as an Avon lady and bought all the products. I ended up not selling anything, except I bought all [the products], because I was so petrified of going out and cold calling. Then I ended up working for Macy’s as a salesperson. I blew that, too, because I didn’t know how to gift wrap. I felt like, Oh my god, I’m so inadequate.
Then a good friend of mine who was a flight attendant said, “Why don’t you think about being a travel agent,” which I never even thought about. I found an ad in the paper and I applied for it and I got hired. And that was really my first entry into the travel industry. DUFFY: Your first hole in the clouds.
So you worked for an agency and then I think you bought an agency. CASTO: I did; I worked for three other
—MARYLES CASTO
agencies.
I was getting restless. The first agency was [run by someone who] didn’t need the business. I think he just enjoyed being in travel. But he was horrible with his clients. I learned a lot of what not to do in the last of the three companies that I worked for. I was always very obsessed about clients, that you had to anticipate clients’ moods, you had to learn about what they wanted. Pay attention to the little details. So those were really my people skills.
I would sit at the airport and wait for people checking in and out, because I felt [it was important] learning how a passenger travels. You’ve got to look at how did they check in? What’s behind the counter? I mean, what are the challenges that they would [face]? All those little things that I felt would help me and educate me. I applied all those knowledge as I was starting to build my resume.
The last agency I worked at was called Travel Planners. When I started, there were only three of us, and when I left there were 30 people. We started handling little accounts; we had a GE account and then Intel. They were like 100 people at that time. I learned that it was the travel assistants and secretaries that really were the people that I should get to know, because I didn’t know the passengers, but I knew those secretaries, and if I did a good job for them, I would take care of their travel needs as well. So I developed really strong relationships with a lot of the travel assistants.
I was handling the corporate business— the company was divided into corporate business and the vacation business. My girlfriend, Lee, was in the vacation business. So between the two of us, we started talking about our frustration, because they weren’t taking care of the employees. So I knew that I could do a better job and I was really frustrated. So she and I talked about it, and again, my dad’s influence is very strong because he kept saying, “You can make this happen.”
She and I decided we were going to go. We were going to quit. We didn’t tell anybody. We just resigned. And so we did. We left, and then we ended up getting an office in Los Altos. We had no money, except what we invested—$1,500 each. We opened the office, and we bought our desks from the Repo Depot. We had ferns as decorations and old maps.
And then nothing happened.
We waited for the phone to ring. Nothing happened. So we started cold calling. I would go hit the pavement and just look and see what opportunities we have.
I was walking down Great American Parkway, and I’ll remember this always. I had to always dress well, because I felt like I was representing myself and the company. I had on high heels. And oh my God, it was so hard. I was walking and broke my heels. I was watching this man from a window and he was paying attention.
I thought, “Well, that’s the first person I’ve seen in that office, in the corner office. So maybe I just walk in,” and I did. I said to the receptionist, “I want to meet the man in the corner office.”
She said, “Well, do you have an appointment?” I said, “No, I don’t.” She said, “Well, let me see what I can do.” She called him and he came out. It was Ken Oshman from ROLM Corporation. DUFFY: As we used to refer to it, he was the O in ROLM. CASTO: That’s right.
He was so nice. I didn’t get the business, of course, but he was so patient. And, you know, at that time in the Valley, everybody really knew each other. So I got the business after a while; they gave me some of the business, but not at that time.
And the phone never rang, and my nextdoor person who lived across from the office was Sandra Kurtzig of ASK Computer. Sandy was one of the pioneers as well, and her office and company was just going crazy. I wanted to learn something from her, so I went to visit with her. What I enjoyed about Sandy is, Sandy was who she was. She never changed. She was tough, but she knew her business. I thought, You know what? I’m going to be like Sandy, because I knew that I could. I knew that I was good. I was very, very good, and I believed in the running of the company. The company was going to be all right. DUFFY: And as you begin to make these connections and gain inroads into the new Silicon Valley companies, around what time was this? CASTO: I think probably in the ’80s.
Finally, after two months, the phone rang and it was Sue McFarland saying something happened to Andy’s reservations. DUFFY: That’s Andy Grove of Intel. DUFFY: Andy Grove. He was at the time general manager, but then I think he became vice president. Andy’s question was, “How could Maryles have made a mistake?” Sue said, “It’s not Maryles; she’s no longer here.” And he said the magic words, “Find her.”
So here I am. Sue calls me and she says “Andy wants you to handle the Intel department he’s in.” And I said, “Sue, that’s wonderful, but I don’t have the money.” We had to pay the airlines every week for tickets that we used.
I said, “I don’t have the money.” He said, “Oh, my goodness, so what are we going to do?” I said, “I don’t know. I’d love to get the account, but financially I can’t afford it.” So they arranged for me to get $20,000 to put in their account. So that was my first fee.
After I got that call, the second call was from Al Shugart of Shugart Associates [later CEO of Seagate]. The same thing: Al wanted me to handle his business. Again, the same thing, I said I have no money, so he said “I’ll pay you cash every time you deliver tickets.”
So those two people really helped me get my business going. And then, of course, Apple came in.
