Housing has a new head honcho.
Peter Angelis, who has worked in the hospitality industry for more than 20 years, took over as assistant vice chancellor of housing and hospitality on Sept. 1.
He is replacing Michael Foraker, who retired after 26 years with the university. Just a year ago, he was working for Foraker as director of UCLA’s Lake Arrowhead Conference Center, host to over 300 events annually, including Bruin Woods.
Now he is in charge of student housing, UCLA Catering and UCLA Conference Services.
A graduate of UC Berkeley, Angelis has spent 12 years working with the Hyatt Corporation, and eight years with the Hilton Hotel Corporation. He last worked for the Michigan-based Resco Development Corporation.
He said he returned to Southern California to work at Lake Arrowhead because he felt the community was a good place for his family and he enjoyed working in historical locations.
“It’s a beautiful conference center and a great asset for UCLA,” he said.
While overseeing the site, he said his interaction with the housing staff on-campus left a positive impression with him, and when given the opportunity to advance, he said it was a good fit.
“My personality, my passion for hospitality was right in line with the culture here,” he said. “I really like the overall mission here, really focusing on maximizing the student’s overall experience on the Hill.”
Within the hospitality industry, Angelis said he specialized in rooms and his prior experience has helped him with the upcoming duties, such as move-in week.
“There’s a great number of similarities between the hotel industry and what I’m seeing with housing,” he said.
While he drew many parallels between the two industries ““ such as the danger of overbooking, a necessity for a smooth check-in process and the food operations ““ he said the two had separate missions.
“In the hotel business, it is a business. The main focus is really on driving the net income and increasing shareholder value. … Housing, in the public sector, the focus is very different,” he said, explaining that the focus is not on making a profit, but on the student’s residential experience.
Suzanne Seplow, director of the Office of Residential Life, said his listening skills make it easy to work with him.
“(ORL’s) role is to create … a safe supportive and inclusive living community,” she said. “I feel like he’s extremely responsive to looking at the needs of students.”
Angelis said he had previously overseen construction projects on the scale of tens of millions of dollars, but overseeing the high-rise residence hall renovations, which is in the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars, is a new field for him.
“Fortunately Michael Foraker will be still working with us on a consulting basis, really focusing on maintaining the marching orders, growing our housing operations and he’ll be spear-heading most of (the construction projects),” he said.
He said he is committed to following through with the university’s directive to eventually expand the housing guarantee from 3 years for freshmen students and 1 year for transfer students to 4 years and 2 years respectively.
“The feeling now is that we have to find a way. … We’re on a mission, and that mission is to deliver on the guarantees established on the Housing Master Plan,” he said. “With the higher take rates that we’re getting from students coming in, we have no choice but to grow the number of beds on the Hill.”
But he added that the university does not fund their operations and Housing and Hospitality Services is a self-sustaining organization.
“We have to work off our own revenues. We don’t take money from campus to operate,” he said.
In addition to the challenges facing him in his new role, Angelis said his role as a manager requires him to listen to both the staff and students in order to be successful.
He said with the team members, it is necessary to hear their concerns in order to provide the proper resources and support for quality service.
“You have to listen to them and find out what’s getting in their way of delivering great service,” he said. “Likewise students, we need to listen to what they’re saying and be able to deliver what they want and what they need and not make the presumptions from our end.”
Angela Marciano, the director of UCLA Housing and Hospitality Services organizational planning, performance, and development, said she has worked with Angelis for almost two years and was part of the search committee to name a director for the Arrowhead Conference Center.
“He’s just wonderful to work with. … (He’s a) very genuine individual,” she said.
She added that he has high energy, and his best feature is his interpersonal skills.
“You get the feeling when you talk to him that he’s hearing what you have to say … I really appreciate that from him, it’s hard to find,” she said.
Seplow said the partnership between the Office of Residential Life and Housing are important to student’s overall experience on the Hill.
“We want a seamless process for our students living in the residential halls,” she said. “I’m excited that he’s on board and looking forward to working closely with him.”