Editorial: CEO earned his pay at Meet Minneapolis

Minneapolis residents face a high tax burden, and city employees are under a wage freeze. So news that Melvin Tennant, president and CEO of Meet Minneapolis, was in line for a nice pay raise and hefty bonus was an easy target for City Hall critics.

First, some background: Tennant recently received his first raise since 2010. The 4 percent hike will bring his base salary to $195,000. He also received a $23,025 bonus for his 2011 performance.

Meet Minneapolis, formerly the Greater Minneapolis Convention and Visitors Association, is a nonprofit corporation mostly funded by city taxpayers.

Tennant has a difficult and important job. Minneapolis faces keen competition for convention business.

Yes, it's a great place to live, but its Upper Midwest location, weather and relatively low-key nightlife don't exactly make it a convention town on par with New York, New Orleans or Las Vegas, let alone its more modest competitive set of Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Dallas and Kansas City.

And despite several workable alternatives, Minneapolis lacks the kind of convention center hotel found in many competing cities.

Despite those challenges, and a still-recovering economy, convention business is up, which means badly needed revenue for Minneapolis.

The bonus, appropriately, was based on 21 specific metrics. The four key measures are all going in the right direction, according to Meet Minneapolis, whose executive board includes three City Council members.

There was an 8.8 percent rise, to 430,663, in anticipated nightly hotel room bookings -- about 96 percent of the goal of 450,000. Bookings for leisure rooms jumped 16.7 percent, to 54,536, although that was short of an aggressive goal of 60,000.

Convention Center revenues rose and exceeded Tennant's goals. Total revenue was $14.6 million, up 15.2 percent from 2010, and 3.5 percent above goal. And the organization recorded $1.06 million in partnership/sponsorship revenue, up 63.8 percent from the previous year and 6.7 percent above goal.

Meet Minneapolis spends about $9 million annually. It estimates that in 2011 the direct economic benefit of Meet Minneapolis' efforts was around $906 million.

Tennant has years of experience, having previously held similar roles in Oakland, Calif., Charlotte, N.C., and San Antonio. He replaced Greg Ortale, who held the job for 20 years. Ortale took a similar leadership role in Houston, he told an editorial writer this week, in order to make more money than Meet Minneapolis could pay.

Overall, investing in Meet Minneapolis pays off. And basing some incentive compensation on measurable and challenging goals is the kind of private-sector practice many taxpayers wish the public sector would do more often.

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