Hotel Monaco Hosts SAMs

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Ah, the luxury, the elegance, the marble! That’s perhaps the best way to describe the historic Hotel Monaco (700 F Street), which welcomed the SAMs earlier this month for their June SAM of the Month meeting, held in one of the boutique hotel’s meeting rooms.

Ed Virtue, Monaco’s general manager, thanked the SAMs for keeping the streets around the former Tariff Building clean. Built nearly 175 years ago and designed as a post office, the building has plenty of history—not to mention award-winning dining at Poste Moderne Brasserie, a French-inspired restaurant with an outdoor kitchen and a chef’s garden. The building was designed by Robert Mills, the architect who designed the Washington Monument, and Thomas Walter, who designed the Capitol Dome.

In 2000, the General Services Administration leased Hotel Monaco, a 183-room (and 17 luxury suite) Kimpton Hotel. Following renovations, the hotel opened two years later and made Conde Nast Traveler’s 80 best new hotels in the world in 2003.

During the meeting, the SAMs bade farewell to Vivian Morgan (formerly Vivian Brooks), a seven-year SAM veteran who retired last week to join her sister in Florida. A few SAMs performed a memorable skit in her honor. Everett D.E. Scruggs, the DowntownDC BID’s director of operations, had this to say about Ms. Morgan, born and raised in Orangeburg, S.C.:

“It was obvious from the very first day that she was a ‘natural’ for the Safety/Hospitality Program. She’s been selected for SAM of the Month on numerous occasions and voted SAM of the Year in 2009. Vibrant, ever dependable, and dedicated to the task at hand, Vivian Morgan received countless letters of appreciation, e-mails and pictures from patrons throughout the continental United States as well as internationally. A stalwart performer and member of the early morning “meet and greet” team, she was extremely proud of her southern roots and credited her approach to the plain ole southern hospitality she learned as a youth.”

Scruggs added: “Vivian Morgan loved to have the Metro station post because “that’s where all the action is,” she would say, and was often referred to as being very kind, sweet, helpful, a guardian angel and super SAM. Vivian is the proud mother of six adult children, is very active in church, makes beautiful flower arrangements in her spare time and finds great joy in being able to help others in whatever way she can.  The sun was always shining in “Ms. Vivian’s” world, and she will be forever missed as a “Hall Of Fame” SAM! Congratulations, Ms. Vivian Morgan, on your retirement, and much success in your future endeavors.”

As it turned out, Morgan was also one of two SAMs recognized at the meeting as May SAMs of the Month for their dedication to excellence and hard work. The other is Maintenance Team Member Lorine Simon.

Lorine Simon, another multiple SAM of the Month winner, has been a SAM for 12 years. A team leader, she sometimes fills in for her supervisor and conducts roll call. The hardworking single mother of three daughters –ages 15, 18, and 21—describes her job as “the baby.” Simon works the 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift and is a “go-to person” who always steps up to the plate to help out and get things accomplished. Two summers ago, she enjoyed working with the BID’s summer interns from the D.C. Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). Simon is very family oriented and much of her life is focused on her daughters, all of whom have excelled academically. When she’s not working to keep Downtown streets clean and litter free, Simon enjoys reading novels and watching movies and basketball in her spare time.