Excerpted from CCARE Newsletter, March 2020

Doug Cliff: Camosun’s

Ambassador to the World

In 1989, I was fortunate to find my dream job,

teaching at Camosun College in my home town
of Victoria. The job description made me think
that it was one for which I had been preparing
most of my life. I didn’t just like working at
Camosun – I loved it!
As a kid, I thought that I’d like to be a chef. A
Dutch neighbour suggested that hotel
management might be a better bet. He gave
me the address of the world’s most famous
hotel school in Lausanne, Switzerland. I
registered soon after my 13th birthday, finished
high school and a year at UVic then went off to
do a three-year diploma, all in French. I came
Doug Cliff back to Victoria, started working at the Empress
Taken at Dunlop House
Hotel and stayed with Canadian Pacific Hotels
for fifteen years working all over Canada and
the US. My last job with CP Hotels was as Resident Manager of an 800 room
hotel in Philadelphia, where I got to welcome such people as George Bush Sr.
and Ronald Reagan.
The hotel business is 24/7, intense and exciting. As I became more senior, I was
more and more on call to solve problems and crises. What do you do when you
have a bomb threat, a fire in the hotel, an outbreak of food poisoning or you have
found a dead guest in the morning? It was never boring!
In Philadelphia, my family actually lived in the hotel. My kids learned to ride their
tricycles in the Ballroom, and daughter Catherine was overheard telling her
friends that her favourite food wasn’t hot dogs, but smoked salmon and After
Eight mints. By the time our two kids were starting school, we had moved eleven
times in fifteen years. It was time for a more settled family life.
When I was offered a job teaching Hospitality Management at George Brown
College in Toronto, I jumped at the chance. The job started in early August with
mandatory teacher training. For the first two years I was working full time while
attending part-time teacher training classes which led to a Diploma in Adult
Education.
 Excerpted from CCARE Newsletter, March 2020

After five years in Toronto, my wife, Angela, and I knew that we wanted to return
to Victoria. When an Instructor position in Hospitality Management became
available at Camosun, I was more or less on the next plane for an interview. I
had known Albert van Citters, the program founder, when I worked at the
Empress so I suspect it was that connection, my background, and the fact that I
was willing to take on the Chair’s job almost immediately, that sealed the deal.
The Hotel and Restaurant Administration program was a gem! Albert and his
team had built a wonderful program that was well respected in the community.
From this base, and with the strong support of the School of Business, the
program became stronger until we had a two-year waiting list. Our applicants
were required to complete a six- month work experience plus several courses in
Computers, Business and English. This led to very low attrition and high
graduation rates. In the School of Business, meeting performance targets was
valued, so our success led to better job security for the faculty during times of
budget cuts and layoffs.

Hospitality Management Team at the time of Doug’s retirement

Doug Cliff, Lee Aitchison, Gerhard Leupelt, Karen Nightingale David Armstrong,
Rebecca Wilson-Mah, Carl Everitt
 Excerpted from CCARE Newsletter, March 2020

To ensure our program relevance, we always worked closely with industry. All of
our instructors belonged to industry associations. Between these contacts and
our Co-op employers we constantly assessed how well our program met industry
needs. When part-time instructors were required, we tried to find local managers
who were working in the hospitality industry.
The program had two mandatory Co-op work terms, one in the summer and one
in the winter. It was easy to find summer placements either locally or in the
Rockies or Whistler or Europe. For the winter term, we sent students to ski
resorts, particularly Whistler, Banff and Lake Louise and many in Switzerland. As
one of the only colleges with hospitality students available in the winter,
employers would contact us months ahead to hire our students.
To ensure that the students were ready to be functional in their co-op placement,
we offered a field school experience in the first year. We took the students to
Whistler where we interspersed some skiing with many industry visits. Faculty
from outside our program sometimes thought the idea of the field school sounded
jolly and suggested they might join us. Little did they know how much work this
experience entailed for instructors and students alike. By the time the vans
returned to Victoria we were all exhausted. Nevertheless we were back in the
saddle to teach class with the same students next morning at 8:30.
Happy memories include a field school in
Holland, an alumni project with CIDA in
Jordan, where faculty went on three
occasions and helped with curriculum at a
college in Aqaba. Co-op visitations were also
fun in various locales, particularly in the UK
and Switzerland. At least one of us would be
on family holidays in Europe most summers,
and would divert to visit our many co-op
students there.
Another highlight was gaining direct entry for
our students into third year B.Com. at the
University of Victoria. This provided a way
forward for our students and increased the
popularity of the program and allowed us to
articulate with many other universities. We
also developed an Open University degree.
Running the Dunlop House restaurant and a
student pub with its attendant problems of
customer service, food safety, student safety Doug in Jordan, 2007
and liquor regulations always provided
 Excerpted from CCARE Newsletter, March 2020

exciting times and a great learning opportunity for students. Gala dinners were
always a big success. This has morphed into charitable events in the community,
gaining great publicity for the program and substantial benefit for the charities
involved.
I retired in 2010 and I love the freedom. I try to
keep some structure by going to the gym almost
every day and credit that with keeping me fit
enough to enjoy hiking and skiing. I have a
season pass at Whistler and belong to a ski club
in Vancouver. I am a member of the Victoria
Alpine Ski Club which does several trips a year.
Next year I will qualify for my super senior
season pass, which is very reasonable indeed. I
hope to be able to ski well into my eighties.
Volunteering is also an important part of my
retired lifestyle. As I was in the tourism industry
for so long, I gravitated back to that and spent
several years, in the summer, greeting cruise
ships and providing information on our beautiful
city. I was one of those dudes with the top hat
and morning coat, and while that organization
has folded, I intend to continue without the
costume under the aegis of Tourism Victoria.
Doug with his son, Michael
at Whistler Over the Christmas period I love to volunteer
with Santa’s Anonymous, and find the work
really gratifying - helping 1,500 families and their
children at Christmas and throughout the year. Another activity is with Saanich
Parks in the ‘Pulling Together’ program. I am a steward at Arbutus Cove Park,
where our work has made a tremendous difference over the past ten years,
opening up the park for visitors.
Additionally, I continue to be a member SKAL, a worldwide association of
Tourism executives. As the Camosun representative to this industry group, I had
access to all of the key tourism players in the region for the benefit of our
programs and I served as President and on the executive for many years. I
continue to extol the virtues of the college to the industry. In September, Angela
and I attended the world SKAL congress on the Symphony of the Seas, the
world’s largest cruise ship.
A huge change in the past three years has been the arrival of two
granddaughters, Sophie in Ottawa and Maddie in Vancouver, so trips to both
cities happen often. Both of our children gained part of their education at
 Excerpted from CCARE Newsletter, March 2020

Camosun. Our daughter,

Catherine, took Hotel and
Restaurant Management
and continued into a BBA at
Royal Roads. She then
joined the Fairmont
Empress, moved from
Reception to HR, was
transferred to Egypt for two
years, then returned to the
Hotel Vancouver where she
stayed for a number of years
while completing an MBA at
UBC. Moving to Kingston
and then Ottawa with her
husband, she decided that
Doug with wife, Angela, and grand-daughter, Maddie
she liked the legal aspect of
the work and has now
finished her law degree from Queens’ with plans to specialize in labour law.
Our son, Michael, completed a BSc. in
Economics at UVic, then came to
Camosun to study Accounting where he
completed the educational courses
required for the CPA designation. This
helped him to be hired by
PricewaterhouseCoopers. After several

Angela with son, Michael, daughter-in-law,

Val and grand-daughter, Maddie Doug and Angela with daughter, Catherine, and
grand-daughter, Sophie
 Excerpted from CCARE Newsletter, March 2020

years in corporate accounting, he is now working as a Chief Financial Officer on-

demand, for high tech start-ups, work that he finds very interesting with lots of
variety. There is no limit to where a Camosun education can take you!
Not surprisingly, travel is still an important part of my life. Having spent so many
years in the industry, both as a practitioner and educator, I feel that I have a
moral obligation to support the industry that is the world’s largest employer, and
one that brings so much benefit to so many areas of the world. Angela and I
began retirement by taking a one-month cruise to New Zealand, spending a
month there hiking and touring.
Our aim now is to do as much adventurous travel as possible before we get too
decrepit, interspersed with trips to see family. Some memorable trips include
Indochina (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia); Peru, Bolivia and Chile,
followed by a cruise from the end point in Chile around Cape Horn to Buenos
Aires, stopping in Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. We’ve
also been to Morocco, Spain and Portugal, the Canary Islands, Greece, Turkey,
Holland, Iceland, Mexico, and Hawaii.
We visited eastern Canada including a
cruise from Boston to Montreal; hiked
in the Saguenay region, and drove
around Newfoundland. This last
January we travelled to India and
Nepal.
Retirement is great! It is a time to
seize the day and do all those things
that you always wanted to do,
remembering, as my doctor says, “You
aren’t 20 anymore.”

Above: Doug and Angela Atop a sand

dune watching a sunset over the Sahara in
Morocco (a truly magical experience)

Right: Doug and Angela enjoying a sunrise

over the Annapurna range in Nepal