By Nate Wisneski – Kalihwisaks
Josh Doxtator has been with Thornberry Creek at Oneida for a short time, but he has already earned the respect of the area’s business community.
The Greater Green Bay Chamber’s Current Young Professionals Network named Doxtator a Future 15 Young Professional award winner. The award honors young professionals making an impact on Brown County.
Doxtator, the General Manager of Thornberry Creek at Oneida, was hired in May of 2014 after a successful career in the corporate minded Phoenix market. Doxtator was not looking for a new position, but a LinkedIn job notification alerted him to the opportunity at Thornberry Creek.
“When this opportunity came in I wasn’t looking. One of my goals has always been to impact my people in some fashion or some way. When I looked into this I saw an opportunity to do something big.” said Doxtator.
“I had no intention of moving to green Bay from Phoenix. When I came on site, I remember it was early March. I didn’t own a jacket and walked outside and walked right back in and called my wife to tell her there was no chance.”
Under Doxtator, big things are on the horizon for Thornberry Creek at Oneida. Late last year the LPGA announced the course will host the Thornberry Creek LPGA Classic July 3—9 in 2017 and July 2-8 in 2018. The event’s $2 million prize purse will be the LPGA Tour’s biggest for a non-major tournament.
While Doxtator trumps bagging the LPGA event as his biggest professional accomplishment, he knows meeting small goals leads to big success.
“This last year was the first time that Thornberry exceeded revenues from the previous year since it was purchased. That to me is a huge success,” said Doxtator.
“The financial growth we’ve seen and the alignment within our organization with our team. They know whey they are here. I say know the score a lot, which means where are we financially, how are we doing on our comment cards? Those little measurements we have in place help us excel our brand.”
Along with growing revenues Thornberry Creek at Oneida has seen their market share grow 70 percent over the last two years along sharpening the course’s overall strategy.
“Last winter we sat down with all of our management team and developed our vision, purpose and the pillars of our business and who we are as people and our values. I think that’s its important for our organizational culture. It’s hard to play the game if you don’t know the score. Every team member on site should know financially how we are doing. They need to have a buy in and not here to just get a paycheck,” said Doxtator.
While Doxtator understands a healthy bottom line leads to a successful business he knows there is a responsibility to the community.
“Where ever I go I make sure to create relationships in the community. Shortly after coming in I became a member of the Current Young Professionals Organization from the Green Bay Area Chamber of Commerce. In this business you’re always a representation of your brand,” he said. “Everything we do in this business is based on relationships.”
“I sat on the Brown County Teen Leadership Board for the chamber, I did give up those duties because of the LPGA consuming all my time right now. I still sit on the NWTC Presidents Council where we really work on how to engage minorities at the technical college and set them up for success beyond that two-year degree.”
The Future 15 award winners will be honored on Feb. 18, from 5 p.m. – 9 p.m. during the Future 15 Young Professional Awards at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wisc.
