Senior overcomes obstacles to win Hotel School's annual Drown Prize

The winner of the School of Hotel Adminstration's Drown Prize, senior Jennifer Croce, stands in the Statler Hotel lobby last week. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Darryl Geddes

Jennifer Croce is one of those people who make you feel at home and relaxed from the moment she says hello and flashes her wide smile. Conversation comes easy for her. It's no wonder this native of Middletown, N.Y., has chosen the hospitality industry in which to make her mark.

And she's already doing it. This month, Croce (pronounced Crose), who will earn her bachelor's degree from the School of Hotel Administration this Sunday, was selected the winner of the school's annual Drown Prize, one of Cornell's richest academic awards. The $15,000 cash prize is presented to the student who has demonstrated independence and perseverance and holds the promise of making a significant contribution to the hospitality industry. The Drown Prize was established and endowed by hotel owner Joseph W. Drown.

"I think you either have good people skills or you don't," said Croce. "The ability to make people feel good about themselves and the desire to want to help and serve people, such as the case with the hospitality industry, is really something that is inherent in someone. You can learn about spreadsheets and management style, but the desire to want to help people really comes from inside."

At 32, Croce is older than most students. And she already has earned a paycheck in the hospitality industry. At Trump's Castle in Atlantic City, she was responsible for ensuring that the needs of the casino's high rollers -- who dropped anywhere from $500,000 to $3 million during a weekend stay -- were met. "You don't want anything to distract them from the reason they came to town," Croce said.

But Croce also has endured more heartache and pain in her young life than most people face in an entire lifetime. One day in 1990 while working at Trump's Castle, Croce experienced blindness in her right eye and felt the right side of her body go numb. Seconds later she slumped to the floor.

"No one knew what happened," she said. Months later, after undergoing a barrage of medical tests, doctors told Croce the news: "They said I had multiple sclerosis," she recalled. "I was devastated. Here I was 25 years old and I had been diagnosed with an incurable disease."

For two years, Croce was unable to walk. "I was depressed, certainly, and felt that my disability was really going to make life extremely difficult. It already had. I couldn't walk," she said.

After working tirelessly with physical therapists and others, Croce slowly learned to walk again. She soon entered Sullivan County Community College, a two-year school in Sheldrake, N.Y. "I thought at first I must be crazy," she said. "How am I going to get to class and do all my studies when I wasn't sure if I could walk again tomorrow. But I put that thought out of my head and just did it."

Croce was named valedictorian and graduated in December 1994 with an associate's degree in hospitality management and computer information systems. Her adviser suggested she apply to Cornell's Hotel School, and she was accepted. But her first year at Cornell was a difficult one. Her MS flared up again, making it especially difficult to get around campus. By taking a year off, Croce was able to refocus, and she determined that she would not leave Cornell again until she had her degree.

"This has been a dream come true," said Croce, who's GPA is just under 4.0. "If I look back to see where I was six years ago, I wouldn't believe it if someone had told me I'd be graduating from Cornell University."

Croce and her fiancee, Joe Gargiulo, who works as night manager at the Statler Hotel, will return to Atlantic City where they will both be employed by Donald Trump -- Croce at Trump World's Fair Casino and Gargiulo at Trump Plaza.

But what Croce really wants to do is help the hospitality industry solve its current predicament: an ever-shrinking labor pool. She wants to lecture at colleges and high schools to infuse students with the excitement of the industry. She also would like to use her computer programming knowledge to introduce more user-friendly software to the industry, which would enable potential new employees -- retirees, people with disabilities, etc. -- to find meaningful employment in the industry.

"I don't think there is much I can't accomplish now," Croce said.