When you ask our Human Resources Manager, Melody McLorie, what part of her legacy she is most proud of, she will tell you: “It’s our people.”

Melody is among those that have been here since before the Inn opened, and her legacy at the Wickaninnish Inn starts at the very beginning. She was hired onto the pre-opening team as a Guest Services Representative one week before the Inn opened its doors for the very first time. By the autumn of that year Melody was leading the Guest Services Team, and in 2003 became the Inn’s first Human Resources Manager. Twenty five years later, Melody’s work has supported nearly every success the Inn has known because the individuals invited onto our team and into our community breathe life into everything the Inn does. If you ask her about what she is looking for in a candidate, she will simply tell you: “passion, and the desire to achieve the art of hospitality,” and her own passion for cultivating an incredible team has defined many generations of the Inn’s most accomplished alumni.

Born and raised a true local Vancouver Islander, Tofino was one of her family's favourites for “camping or a beach fix” when she was growing up. When she moved here in 1991, it was for the hospitality opportunities at the local beach resorts and campgrounds, though she only planned to stay a year before venturing out further into the world. However, as she watched the Inn being built she decided to apply for a job - and the rest, as they say, is history.

“Hospitality is really where my heart is,” says Melody, “Other than a paper route one summer and a weekend job during high school at a tile shop, my entire work experience has been hospitality.” In that storied history, one of the accomplishments that shine most brightly in her memory is hosting the Relais & Chateaux Delegation in 2003, saying it was a “tremendous honour, and an authentic West Coast hospitality experience that is still raved about today.”

Though smaller in scale, some of the most impactful achievements Melody highlights have been assisting international team members in achieving their Permanent Residency, and knowing that means they can now bring their family to Tofino to reunite after years of working and living abroad. Receiving her Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant License in 2015 has allowed the Inn to bring much of its international hiring in-house, though Melody still travels widely as an ambassador for the Inn to speak with the world’s top talent about the opportunities offered here.

In her spare time, Melody has cultivated an interest in enology, and took a year away to intern in the wine industry in the Okanagan before returning to her role in Human Resources: “I enjoy discovering new vineyards or finding a winemaker who may be doing something unique and different, and maintaining friendships with the handful of the founding members of the Wickaninnish Inn family who now live in and are part of the hospitality industry in the Okanagan Valley.”

With so much promise in-store, especially as the Inn marks its 25th Anniversary, Melody’s deep and genuine appreciation of hospitality and love for the community of Tofino will continue to profoundly impact the fabric of the Inn. And while you may find her catching up with a new recruit about how they are settling in, or further afield acting as an ambassador for the Inn to the graduating class of a Swiss hospitality school - you may just as easily find her enjoying a glass of wine at a little known vineyard she has just discovered one fine summer’s day. In either case, you’ll be seeing one of our most cherished team members pursuing something they are truly passionate about, just as she supports members of the Wickaninnish Inn team to do - and has since the very beginning.