Anthony Melchiorri is a hospitality industry expert and host of the Travel Channel show Hotel Impossible. He learned the hotel business in the 1990s working at prestigious hotels like the Plaza Hotel and the Algonquin Hotel in New York City. He now runs his own hotel consulting firm called Argeo Hospitality and spends about three weeks per month traveling for his work helping struggling hotels get back on their feet.

1. 32 DECEMBER 2012 deltaskymag.com
CURRENT ROLE: Host and
co-executive producer of
Travel Channel’s Hotel
Impossible; owner of
Argeo Hospitality
HOME BASE:
Queens, NYC
DAY SPENT ON
THE ROAD: Three
weeks per month
STREET CRED: Melchiorri
is one of the world’s most
sought-after hotel fixers. He
learned the ropes at the Plaza
Hotel and the Lucrene Hotel in
the 1990s before overseeing
the renovation of New York
City’s storied Algonquin
Hotel. With a knack for hotel
repositioning, Melchiorri
now runs his own consulting
agency, Argeo Hospitality, and
also hosts Travel Channel’s
Hotel Impossible, helping ailing
hotels in need of a facelift and
a boost in business. Season
two of Hotel Impossible starts
December 3 on Travel Channel.
—Anya Britzius
One Click:
John Bezos
and the
Rise of
amazon.com
Journalist Richard
L. Brandt explores
the strategies
and successes of
amazon.com CEO
and founder Jeff
Bezos. Paperback
out December 24.
MobileDay
Eliminate the
hassle of dialing
into conference
calls while
traveling with
this one-touch
conference call
app, available for
free for the iPhone
and Android.
mobileday.com
FileMaker Go
Manage projects,
check inventory,
organize
research notes
and close sales
deals while on
the road with this
recently updated
app. $39.99.
Available on
the App Store
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Business
Hot
List
Whenit’stimetorelax,Ilove
goingtoMauiandSanDiego.
Gotta Have It //
OUYA
Power
OUYA’s speed and HD graphics
aren’t far behind PS3. It also has Ethernet,
WI-FI access, a USB port, Bluetooth and
comes with a wireless controller.
Games
OUYA ships with a free software
development kit, and developers big and
small are lining up to create titles for
the world’s first open console for the TV.
Videos and Music
Not a gamer—or a game
designer? OUYA also streams video
and music to your living room for less
than a Benjamin.
1 2 3
Until recently, the video game industry was dominated by big-budget titles played
on expensive consoles. But we’re all gamers now, and we mostly play cheap ones on
smartphones and tablets. Which is where OUYA comes in. It squeezes the brains of a
powerful Android tablet into a box the size of a Rubik’s Cube. Hook it up to your TV for
upscaled versions of smartphone games, plus a new raft of titles made exclusively
for OUYA. It’s an open platform, so anyone can develop for it, and all games are avail-
able as free demos. $99 preorder (ships April 2013), ouya.tv —Caramel Quin
Favorite restaurant for a
business lunch //
The Algonquin Hotel, NYC
I love the Round Table Room in the
Algonquin’s lobby. I do all my business
lunches there because of the history.
It has a good energy.
Favorite bar for a
business drink //
The Oak Bar, NYC
You get to see Central Park and
the whole world pass before
you at The Oak Bar, a private
space at The Plaza Hotel. I love
doing business in New York
because you have access to
everything.
Favorite boutique hotel //
Mondrian Los Angeles and
Sanctuary Camelback Mountain
Resort & Spa, Scottsdale
The Mondrian in LA has a cool lobby, pool
and Skybar. It’s sort of old school, but I’m
comfortable there. The Sanctuary (at left)
in Arizona is amazing.
Try The Oak
Bar’s Barbados
julep, which
is made with
Mount Gay rum.
Business Class //
Anthony Melchiorri Hospitality Guru
Wheels
UP

2. // How did American Drive come about?
Back in 1993, 1994, I wanted to start an independent
manufacturing-based company that would become world-
wide, multinational and profitable, and I wanted to prove that
it could still be done in America—and right here in the heart-
land. And now that we’ve done that successfully, in one of the
most difficult environments to do so, I thought I’d write it up
and send it out to the public to show that
manufacturing is so vital to generate jobs,
generate wealth, add creative innovation
and maintain technology leadership.
// What is happening in American
manufacturing today?
We’ve lost about 7 million jobs in the last
five years, and many of them were in the
manufacturing sector. Because of the
erosion of manufacturing, we don’t have
the jobs to put a huge number of people
back into the workplace. And our country
has become so slipshod on education and
skills [development] and advancement,
that even where we do have openings, we
don’t have the right skill sets to match the
needs. What’s really critical for today and
in the future is to get back to making things. This is not your
father’s manufacturing environment. It’s all about applied
engineering and applied technology. So if somebody wants to
be in the IT or engineering sector, come to the manufacturing
sector and you’ll be challenged to the point where your IQ will
be squeezed left, right, up and down.
// Has the company been able to bump up salaries
since cutting them during the early part of the
recession?
We’re back to basic salary and engineering growth. We’re very
close to 1,000 engineers on payroll. When we started, we had
149. We’re hiring salaried personnel again and also are hiring
hundreds of hourly associates. For example, at Three Rivers,
Michigan, we’ve hired about 400 people
in the last 15 months there, net. And we
expect to hire another 300 to 500 more
people in the state of Michigan, and these
would be United Auto Workers union-
represented workers.
// AAM currently has 33 facilities
in 13 countries. Is that really a reflec-
tion of American manufacturing
strength?
Absolutely. Because it shows that an
American company like AAM, headquar-
tered here in Detroit, has the ability to
penetrate these other rapidly growing
markets, many in emerging markets. We’re
now the second-largest light-commercial
axle producer in the whole country of China.
Eight years ago, we weren’t even there. So it shows that we
can adapt to markets, we can adapt to companies, we can
adapt to consumers. Since the recession, we have created
five new facilities in the greater Midwest. We’re not in any
way abandoning America. We’re expanding.
—Gene Rebeck
In 1993, Richard Dauch, then a 30-year veteran of the automobile industry, bought five unprofitable auto
parts and supply plants with a team of small investors and merged them into an independent, standalone
company. AAM was a wild success, supplying innovative axles and other parts primarily to General Motors.
And then came the 2008 crash of the American auto industry and along with it a divisive employee strike
at AAM, during which workers were laid off and salaries cut. After restructuring, the company is profitable
again, and in September, Dauch published American Drive, which tells the story of AAM and argues for the
importance of a strong U.S. manufacturing sector.
34 DECEMBER 2012 deltaskymag.com
Las Vegas, December 3–6—This conference covers
many bases in the IT realm. Venetian Resort Hotel and
Casino, gartner.com/technology
Gartner Data Center
Conference
Shenzhen, China, December
3–5—One of the solar energy
sector’s top events comes to the
industry’s red-hot center: China.
Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition
Center, biztradeshows.com
Asia SolarExpo 2012
Conference Call //
Manufacturingissovitalto
generatejobsandwealth.
—Richard E. Dauch
U.S. Manufacturing Jobs,
In Thousands
Five Minutes With //
Richard E. Dauch Co-founder and Executive Chairman of the Board,
American Axle & Manufacturing (aka AAM)
Expoprotection
2010
11,528
2009
11,847
2008
13,406
01/12–
09/12
12,028
2011
11,733
Paris, December 4–7—This conference
brings together companies offering
solutions to major health
and environmental
risks. Porte de Versailles,
expoprotection.com

3. 36 DECEMBER 2012 deltaskymag.com
The Outlook with Ali Velshi //
Cash May Not Be King
I don’t know if you noticed while you
were buying holiday gifts, but things
are starting to cost a little bit more,
and some of us have started wor-
rying about inflation. It’s generally
caused by demand for products
and services growing more quickly
than supply.
The Federal Reserve, in trying to
stimulate the sputtering economy, has
repeatedly lowered interest rates to create
demand, jobs and wealth. Low interest rates feel
good, especially to borrowers, but they can also
trigger inflation. That’s because in order to lower
rates, the Fed buys government bonds from
investors. In exchange, it injects “liquidity,” or
newly printed money, into the economy. When
you increase the supply of money, each dollar
becomes worth a little bit less. Sometimes it
takes a while for the market to figure out how
much less, but, eventually, you will see an
increase in prices for goods and services.
Inflation’s not going to be sudden—you’ll feel
it coming. People who
fear inflation tend
to keep a proportion
of their investments
in hard assets such
as precious metals,
commodities or real
estate. You can buy
precious metals them-
selves or through
exchange-traded
funds (ETFs), which
track the price of the
metals and allow you
to buy or sell them
like a stock. For real
estate, if you’re not in
the market to buy a place, consider a real estate
investment trust (REIT), which is like a mutual
fund, but instead of being a basket of stocks, it’s
a real estate portfolio.
Inflation’s not something you need to panic
about, but it is something against which you
should protect your portfolio.
Ali Velshi is CNN’s chief business correspondent.
People who fear
inflation tend
to keep a pro-
portion of their
investments
in hard assets
such as precious
metals.
Wheels
UP
Retractable
iPhone Micro
Mini Combo
USB Sync
and Charge
This handy
device has one
retractable
cable complete
with micro and
mini USBs and
an Apple 30 pin
connector.
Great for road
warriors. $14.99.
zipkord.com
Myspace 2.0
At presstime,
Myspace was
prepping to
relaunch itself as a
sexy, horizontally
scrolling
streaming music
service. Think
Pinterest meets
Spotify. Look for
it this month or
in early 2013.
myspace.com
Fashion
Brands:
Branding
Style from
Armani to
Zara
Mark Tungate’s
third edition
of Fashion
Brands explores
the impact of
advertising,
marketing
and media on
the fashion
industry and its
consumers.
Business
Hot
List
photo:cnn(aliVelshi).

4. 38 DECEMBER 2012 deltaskymag.com
Connoisseur //
Apple I
Introduced: 1976
Back story: Apple
co-founder Steve
Wozniak built the
company’s debut
product: a circuit
board that required
users to provide
a case, monitor
and keyboard. The
bare-bones personal
computer retailed for
$666.66.
Holy Grail for nerds:
It’s estimated that
less than 50 of
these collector’s
items exist today.
Earlier this year,
Sotheby’s auctioned
off a working Apple I
for $374,500.
Seed money
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs
sold his VW bus and Steve
Wozniak parted with a $500
calculator to fund the Apple I. But it was fast back then
The Apple I is 1,000 times
slower than an iPad.
Next in line
The Apple II—Apple’s first
mass-produced micro-
computer—was released
a year after the debut of
its predecessor.
A truly personalized
computer
When it came to protect-
ing the Apple I’s circuitry,
consumers got creative,
building everything
from titanium shells to
wooden cases like the
one shown here.
photo:EdUthman.