Marc Hassan is this year’s First Vice Chair for THE PLAYERS Championship’s volunteer leadership team. It’s a position with a lot of responsibility and one that requires years of preparation.
You’ve gone through the yearslong process of learning all aspects of THE PLAYERS volunteer experience to become First Vice Chair. Tell me about that journey and the vice chair positions you’ve held.
The path is not always a straight path. You start out as a regular volunteer or as an assistant chair or a chair of a committee. And then, you kind of move around to different spots. Now, there are some committee chairs that like what they do, and they’ve been there for a long time and they stay on that committee, but others move around from committee to committee, which is what I did.
So, I started out as an assistant chair in General Parking, parking cars. Did that for a couple of years. Moved inside to Tournament Support, which is exactly what it sounds like. It kind of covers any holes that other committees may have. So, if a volunteer doesn’t show up or there’s a special need that has come up out of the blue, Tournament Support will step in and kind of fill those gaps.
Then, I went back out to Admissions, so I handled the admissions gates for a couple of years. Then, Patriots’ Outpost. Then, I was interviewed to be a vice chairman.
There are five vice chairmen. You start with Volunteer Services, which does everything to support the volunteers. Everything from transportation to feeding them, apparel, credentials, et cetera, et cetera.
And then, we have a couple of fun ones like Players Pride, which recognizes volunteers that kind of go above and beyond during the Tournament Week. Volunteer engagement — we have a spot in Volunteer Village called the Back Yard, which has putting competitions and things like that.
Then, you go to Facilities, which is general parking, commissary, disabled guest services, golf carts, construction and course prep, which, they start meeting out there in January. They meet every Saturday. Everything from pressure washing to building picnic tables, roping and staking the course, et cetera.
Then, you go to Spectator Services. That’s your third year. And that is overseeing all the hospitality venues.
From there, you go to Player Services — caddies, practice grounds, player escorts, gallery management, things like that.
And then, First Vice year, which is obviously my year. We have evac, tournament support and Players Pride. First Vice typically has fewer committees under them, because they are at the direction of the Chairman pretty much running the day-to-day, making sure all the other divisions, all the other vice chairs are doing what they need to do. We meet with PGA staff a couple of times a week, communicating with them, what’s new, what’s going on, what have we got to look out for, where we are in the process, et cetera, et cetera.
And then the Chairman is just that, the Chairman. He’s making sure everything stays on the rails.
How do you manage all of this?
I will say it is a lot like having a second job, sometimes. It’s a lot of work. But it really comes down to the team and making sure you’re really working well with your team. Again, the structure is such that each vice chair can kind of handle their own divisions, but we do things starting pretty immediately after the tournament — like sending out surveys to all of our volunteers and then critiques to all of our chairs of different committees: what went well, what can we improve on, et cetera, et cetera.
We have a critique meeting with staff, typically in April or May. And then, this year, what I did was kind of an all-day retreat with the team — I think it was in June — where we kind of just laid out the year. … Then we start meeting with the committees for next year. Asking our chairs if they’re coming back and planning things out, so it is a yearlong commitment.
You have something like 2,000 volunteers. How critical are those volunteers?
They’re everything. Absolutely. The volunteers are everything. The tournament would not run without them, and that goes back to the roots. THE PLAYERS started as the Greater Jacksonville Open and it was 100% volunteer-based.
Those volunteers, they’re a well-oiled machine. Many of them come back year after year. Some of those committees, they are year-round. They are like family to each other.
When did you first become involved and what prompted you to take that step?
My first year volunteering was 2014. My wife’s uncle, Damon Olinto, is now a Red Coat. He’s a past chair. So, just going to family parties — Christmas, Thanksgiving, things like that — he’d talk about what was going on and how things were going. And I said, “You know, I’d like to try my hand at that.”
“OK. You’re going to start out in General Parking.”
Bob Livingston is the chair of General Parking. He’s been in General Parking for a long time. It’s one of those positions where you don’t see the tournament. You’re out there working, out in a dusty parking lot on a hot day; this was back when the tournament was still in May.
Bob kind of showed me the ropes. … I loved it. Did it for two years. The good thing about General Parking is you’re busy all day, which I like. I don’t like to sit idle when I’m out doing something like that.
Are you a golfer yourself?
I am a terrible golfer. I do have aspirations to be better, but I’m like a 30 handicap.
What do you feel are the most rewarding aspects of volunteering with THE PLAYERS Championship?
From a community standpoint, I would say it is the volunteers and coming back every year. It’s like a big family reunion. There are hugs and kisses and catching up on how the family’s been and things like that. So that part of it, the camaraderie, is amazing.
But I’d say the most rewarding part is really seeing where all that work goes in terms of charitable dollars to the community. Without those 2,000 volunteers, we would not have the ability, the PGA Tour would not have the ability and the Red Coats would not have the ability to issue their grants to local charities. …
That part’s amazing. And we as vice chairmen and Red Coats, we actually get to go to those charities, see where those dollars are going, visit them — and there are so many different charities out there that I never knew about until I got involved. It’s really just amazing. And those dollars stay local.
Tell me about your business, Spectrum Realty Services.
I opened Spectrum in 2007. I got my real estate license because we were doing some real estate development projects, and we were using outside brokers. But I still had to stay involved and said, “OK, why are we paying an outside broker? I’m still involved.”
So, I kept my license and just used it for our own internal purposes. Managed our own properties, did development deals, things like that, which we still do.
Then, ’08 happened, market crash. We had some town homes and office condos we had developed that we couldn’t sell. So, we started renting them. And then, friends said, “Hey, I’ve got this property over here. Can you help me rent it?”
And, as the market was still turning around, I kind of liked the idea of the recurring income between development projects and things like that.
Since then, we’ve kind of focused on the property management side of things. Acquired a few other property management firms over the past few years. … And I’ve just been focused on property management.
We still do sales and brokerage. But we do residential property management, smaller multi-family property management, association management and commercial property management.
Anything else?
We’re looking forward to a good year.
