Be Careful What You Suggest. We Probably Will Do It.

Of all the sayings we have adopted at Turning Stone Enterprises over the years, one of my favorites is “be careful what you suggest because we probably will do it.”? ?It is our culture.? It reflects our commitment to innovation and growth.? It speaks to the empowerment of our team.?

We share this message with job applicants during our first meetings with them.? We express it during our strategic planning sessions.? We repeat it during our construction meetings, process improvement discussions, and even during our hallway conversations.

But I like the mantra beyond just uttering the words – I like it because we actually live it every day.? Last month, the Oneida Indian Nation and Turning Stone Enterprises secured $600 million in financing to bring our team’s ideas to reality.? We are doing this across our entire array of enterprises in tourism, information technology, hospitality, entertainment, gaming, retail, production, recreation, economic development and professional services teams.

Our team’s ideas center achieving on a single goal: realizing a vision, created by Oneida Indian Nation Representative and Turning Stone Enterprises CEO Ray Halbritter, to be the best-in-class in whatever we do. ?With this vision in mind, we will build a stunning new hotel -- our sixth! -- and double our award-winning conference space at Turning Stone Resort Casino, our Forbes and Condé Nast award-winning resort and New York's #1 rated casino for eight consecutive years. This expansion will be Turning Stone ’s largest evolution in two decades and will enhance the amazing experiences at our dozen restaurants, five golf courses, five hotels, five nightlife venues, two entertainment theaters and two spas. We will build another hotel – our seventh! -- at Point Place Casino , where we will also double the size of our gaming floor.?

Ahead of these developments, we have introduced TS Sports, our new sports betting brand. We now offer it at Turning Stone’s spectacular new sports lounge and nightlife spot, New York Rec & Social Club, and also at our YBR Casino & Sports Book and Point Place Casino.

We will build a first-of-its-kind Tesla showroom, service center and distribution facility on Oneida lands.? We will advance our development of Verona Collective, our seed-to-sale cannabis operation, which features a 50,000-square-foot grow facility and multiple cannabis dispensaries.? We will continue fueling Oneida Technical Solutions , our IT development and cybersecurity firm, which we formed just two years ago and already has more than $100 million in projects under contract.?

We will open the Mary C. Winder Community Center, a stunning 90,000-square-foot centerpiece of the new Oneida neighborhood with indoor box lacrosse, a gorgeous swimming pool, a large gymnasium, learning centers and meeting rooms.? We will build still more affordable housing for Nation Members, with special housing for elders, to attract Oneida people to return to their homelands.? We will expand Wáhta??, our maple syrup farm.? And, we will build more Maple Leaf Markets, our widely popular convenience stores featuring Turning Stone-to-Go meals.?

All of these investments are important to the Oneida Indian Nation.? A far more important investment we are making, however, is in our team members . ??Supporting all of this growth and diversification requires people who share our passion for innovation, integrity and excellence in everything we do.?

We do this by doing more than simply hiring for jobs.? We create career opportunities.? We are funding career development programs to ensure that we are the employer of choice for people who share our pride in creating award-winning experiences.? We host our own table games dealer school.? We host finance and accounting internships, and we offer accounting scholarship s for continuing education. We have established a tuition reimbursement program for massage therapists.? We provide on-the-job training for virtually all of our entry-level positions.? And, we have developed a new leadership development program.

Our investments to support our team are found in lots of other areas too. ?We built affordable housing for new hourly team members and we provide free transportation from our new apartments to work every day. ?We are among our region’s largest employers of refugees, for whom we offer an inclusive environment by providing interpreters, translated materials and prayer rooms.? We provide dormitories for foreign interns.? We are compensating entry-level cooks with industry-leading wages, and we are investing in our team to ensure we attract co-workers who love to grow and succeed as much as we do.? Later this month, we will have lots of fun hosting our annual First in Excellence awards, during which we will award all-expenses-paid vacations to select team members who exemplify our values through their delivery of world-class service to our guests and to each other.?

How do we accomplish all of this?? All of these ideas started as suggestions from our team members -- and we did them.? Encouraging new ideas, and then fulfilling them, is invigorating.? We have a really fun tradition whenever we open a new business, construct a new building, or launch a new initiative: we always turn to ask each other, what’s next? ??

If you share our passion for innovation, integrity and being the best in everything we do, I hope you will bring your skills and ideas to us here in Oneida.? If you do, be sure to bring your suggestions with you – we probably will do them – and then join us in asking afterward, what’s next?? #WeAreTurningStone