Chairman Grand Hotel

Dan Musser II

In March 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression at a time when all the nation’s banks had been closed, W. Stewart Woodfill was the sole bidder in an auction to take the hotel out of receivership. His nephew, R. D. (Dan) Musser II, became president in 1960 and purchased the hotel from Woodfill in 1979.

He started at the hotel as a college student in 1951, working for his uncle in a variety of assignments as he got to know every detail of the operation. He has worked at the hotel fulltime since leaving the U.S. Army in 1957.

Grand Hotel is listed as one of Travel & Leisure magazine’s Top 500 hotels in the world, received Successful Meetings Magazine’s Pinnacle Award as one of the top 25 hotels in the Midwest and for the 14th consecutive year has been named a winner of the AAA Four Diamond Award.

Interviewed by Bill Ballenger
80 minutes, December 17, 2009