Patrick Lynch
Age: 35
Title: Executive Director
Company: Destination Worcester
Company location: Worcester
Residence: Framingham
Career highlights:
I’m the executive director of Destination Worcester which promotes Worcester as a meeting and event destination. I started in the hospitality industry at 14 working at Nashawtuc Country Club in Concord. During and after college I worked as an EMT, but left that and worked briefly for Sue & John Zahner at Tastings Catering until I started at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Cambridge as food and beverage manager. From Boston I went to the Crowne Plaza in Natick as the director of sales and marketing and then to the Providence Warwick CVB as director of national accounts.
Community involvement:
While attending college in Vermont I became a firefighter and advanced Emergency Medical Technician and have worked as a volunteer EMT for St. Michael’s College Fire and Rescue for the 16 years since. During that time I also worked as a paid EMT, but volunteering or paid, assisting someone in a desperate time of need has always been rewarding. Locally, I work with the Massachusetts Urban Search & Rescue Task Force (MATF1).
Biggest professional success:
I just completed my term as chapter president of the New England Chapter of Meeting Professionals International (MPI). In 2002, I started volunteering on committees and was placed on the board of directors in 2004. Through my time as a volunteer leader I gained experience and an education I could not have paid for.
Dream job:
I think as I approach retirement my wife and I would like to open a seasonal bed and breakfast somewhere in Maine or Vermont.
Businessperson he admires most:
My in-laws. In 1981 they left England and headed to the Caribbean island of Anguilla, BWI based on a letter they received from a friend that said there were opportunities for young driven individuals there. Having managed pubs in northern England for many years the two opened a fish & chips shack on the beach that has grown into Roy’s Bayside Grill, a well known island restaurant visited by everyone from local islanders to celebrities and royalty from around the world. Their journey was not an easy one; they worked extremely hard rebuilding after several hurricanes and putting in countless hours to build a successful business.
If you weren’t doing the job you’re doing now, what would you do?
I took the job at the Sheraton Commander Hotel as a stopover while I tried to get hired as a firefighter in and around the Boston area, but stopped taking firefighter exams after I took the job at the Greater Boston CVB, so if I wasn’t doing this, it would be because I had gotten a job as a firefighter.
Favorite movie:
White Christmas, it reminds you of what’s really important.
If you were stuck on a desert island what book would you want to have with you?
“The SAS Survival Handbook” by John Wiseman and “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
