Women in Travel: Louise Gardiner Goes Back to her Roots

Louise Gardiner is going back to her roots. Recently announced as VP of The Agency Solution by The Travel Agent Next Door, Gardiner is coming full circle in her new role that saw her start out as a small business entrepreneur.

Born in Montreal, Gardiner, who is bilingual, got into travel in an interesting way. Growing up in a ski family, she started teaching at a young age and met her husband, who was a ski patroller at Chicopee in Kitchener. They married and opened up a ski shop when she was only eighteen years old. It was a travel agent friend on the slopes who knew someone looking for a bookkeeper at her travel agency and thought Gardiner should apply. That agency was (now closed) Meissner Travel and where Gardiner caught the travel bug, eventually becoming VP.

"Here I am in this role that I never thought I'd have in my life," surmises Gardiner. "The owner was very much an absentee, a very trustworthy man to work for. I ended up being the leader of his branch, which at the time was about a $5 million dollar agency and grew it to over $12 million."

Meissner Travel was sold to TripCentral.ca in 2002 and Gardiner went to work for Richard Vanderlubbe at TripCentral as Vice President. She was there until 2004, when Carlson Wagonlit Travel recruited her as they launched their new RBC rewards program.

"Carlson Wagonlit Travel needed someone to oversee their associate franchisee division and I was perfect for the job, a small business entrepreneur " that was small town, small agency focused, doing all the operations and was also very technically savvy. I did it all, corporate, leisure, supplier management, marketing, but my core has always been operations because that's where I came from.

"I brought the entrepreneurial spirit to a very large global organization and helped to make the leisure division very successful and I'm very proud of that."

Gardiner was living the life - and then life hit.

In December 2017, her husband of 42 years, Graham, had a double lung transplant.

Trying to keep some sense of normalcy, Gardiner continued in her role with CWT for a few months, working remotely from the hospital. It was a stressful time both personally and professionally and she ultimately had to put her career on hold.

"I had to take a leave of absence because in travel when you're a senior leader, you're travelling. You're in Montreal, Vancouver, then down to Minneapolis to our headquarters, you're just always on the road. It had always worked because Graham was an entrepreneur who stayed home and looked after the business and the kids.

But when this happened, I just couldn't do it. I was the primary caregiver."

Gardiner worked from home for most of 2018 and despite being too young to retire, decided she needed to, a decision she doesn't know she would've made had Graham not gone through what he did. She remained active in the industry, including serving as the the Treasurer of ACTA, being a member of the TICO Board until last June and is a Rotarian where she has already been President once and will again be in July 2020. They sold the ski shop to their son Trevor and increased the number of their golf games. She thought she'd have enough to keep her busy.

"Graham is quite happy being retired. I on the other hand, would sit across from him at the kitchen table saying "ok so what's the plan for today". And there was no plan. So I kind of need a little bit more, but I can't go back to my life at CWT commuting and jumping on planes anymore, because my life's changed.

I want to be closer to Graham when you have that scare and journey you go through, you want to be there."

Enter an opportunity to work with Flemming Friisdahl.

Gardiner says in "typical Flemming fashion", he called to ask her if she knew of anyone interested in a new role with him. They looked at a number of people before he asked if she'd be willing to join him if they could tailor the position to her needs.

"I've known Flemming for many years and I highly respect him. He's also highly respected in the industry, offers a fantastic program with amazing technologies, marketing and training. His vision of being a support system for individuals has been there for years and now we're trying to transpose that system into a storefront opportunity without diverting too much from what's there now."

With the move to The Agency Solution, Gardiner is, in a sense, back to where she first started 40 years ago. She's working with the small agencies like the one she first started in, helping them to grow. It's a position perfect for a woman who has given motivational speeches on the importance of work/life balance and time management. With a successful career, a strong family core it's safe to say she's accomplished much of what she set out to do the last 40 years.

"I'm known as the tick in the box girl; get a vision, figure out where you want to go, set a plan and then learn how to work within that to be successful and that's what I hope to do for The Agency Solution"

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