Kurt Kuebler, a former national director of the Club Managers Association of America (CMAA) and, since April 2004, the general manager and chief operating officer at Isleworth Golf & Country Club in Windermere, Fla., has joined the executive search firm Kopplin Search as a senior partner.
“Kurt has a reputation for integrity and productivity,” said president Richard Kopplin, whose 12-year-old company was named Executive Search Firm of the Year for 2006 by BoardRoom magazine. “He is incredibly knowledgeable; gets the job done; has very good, objective judgment; and can look at all sides of an issue and make very rational, measured decisions.
“People gravitate to him. He has a charisma that you can’t teach.”
Kuebler oversaw several changes, including a major golf course restoration after three hurricanes, while at Isleworth, the home of Tiger Woods and a dozen other PGA Tour players, Shaquille O’Neal and Ken Griffey Jr. Prior to that, he served in a similar capacity at The Loxahatchee Club and Homeowners’ Association in Jupiter, Fla., and as vice president and general manager of Desert Highlands in Scottsdale, Ariz. A 1980 Michigan State University graduate, with a degree in hotel, restaurant and institutional management, the Petoskey, Mich., native started his career at Grosse Pointe Yacht Club in Grosse Point Shores, Mich.
“I’ve known Dick [Kopplin] for 16 years and he and I have been talking about this for nine of them,” said Kuebler. “There were a few things I wanted to accomplish in my club career before I tried something like this. I felt we accomplished them at Isleworth and though I loved it there, I was finally ready for this move.”
With Kuebler working out of Florida and Kopplin out of Arizona, the company “will have a better, bigger presence on the East Coast, which is me,” Kuebler said. “Dick has traversed many, many time zones many times, and our desire is to allow greater individual focus on east of the Mississippi River for me and west of the Mississippi for him. We will continue to cross time zones regularly. It just happens to work far better with representation on both ends of the country.”
“We’ve had a national presence from the beginning,” Kopplin said, citing Baltusrol Country Club (CC) in Springfield, N.J., Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa. and Annapolis (Md.) Yacht Club as well as Midwest clubs like Scioto CC in Columbus, Ohio, and Exmore CC in Highland Park, Ill.. But what Kurt brings now is the ability to access, even more so, the Florida and East Coast corridor.
“Geographically, we think we have a strong east-west connection now and that will serve our clients very well.”
Kopplin Search works with two primary clients: private, member-owned clubs and development clubs.
“We do a lot of work with developer clubs, like Lyle Anderson Co., Anthem communities and the Atira Group. That’s a niche that we fill that a lot of people don’t even look at, because Kurt and I both have backgrounds with development business. In addition, we’ve had significant experience managing private residential communities and resort properties.
“Having said that, the bulk of our business, 80 percent, is done with typical private member clubs.
“It takes time to build the brand name and reputation,” said Kopplin, a director of CMAA’s Club Foundation Board. “I’ve found that after 12 years we have traction in the market. Our goal for each client is specific and that’s what differentiates us. We don’t flip resumes. It’s not one-size-fits-all. The key for us is to understand the culture and needs of a club, and spend time with leadership and the search committee.”
Noting that he and the 51-year-old Kuebler have more than 60 years combined experience in the golf industry, Kopplin said “there are very few of the 7,000 club managers in America that Kurt and I do not know. We can go out in the marketplace and find people doing that kind of work who will be a good fit for a club.”
“We absolutely want our clients to be satisfied that we have brought them the best possible candidate,” Kuebler said. “We are typically placing candidates who are the single most identifiable person in that club facility, so we want our candidates’ credentials and standards to be above reproach. Therefore, we guarantee our placements. If, for any reason, a candidate should leave within the first year of placement, we will replace them without extra charge to the club.”
To that end, Kopplin’s team includes a former U.S. Treasury special agent, Kevin Peters, who performs a full criminal, credit and personal background and reference check on each candidate. The Plotkin Group, which created an “honesty measure” for the PGA of America, also developed a personality profile test specifically for Kopplin Search.
“Historically,” Kuebler said, “the average tenure for club general managers is 2-1/2 to 3 years. For golf professionals and superintendents, it’s a touch longer. But the average tenure of a Kopplin replacement is approximately 8-1/2 years.”
“And that,” added Kopplin, “is trending longer and longer. We have a number of people we placed who have been at their clubs 10, 11, 12 years. Our staying power track record is very good.”
Kopplin Search can be contacted at 7349 Via Paseo Del Sur #202, Scottsdale, AZ 85258, telephone 480-443-9102; or 6012 Caymus Loop, Windermere, Fla. 34786, telephone 407-864-6798.