Email
PrintTaking the Reins
A new crop of movers and shakers emerges in Jackson Hole
PHOTOGRAPHY BY W. GARTH DOWLING
Clockwise from top left: Gavin Fine, Scott Crisp, Mariam Diehl, Sean Love, Melissa Turley, Rob DesLauriers, Clayton Andrews, Geordie Gillett, Anne Hayden Cresswell and Dr. Jim Little Jr.
(page 1 of 10)
It happens here; it happens everywhere. The years fly by, children become adults, and the responsibilities of leadership change hands. Some of the valley residents who today are young leaders in their fields grew up in Jackson Hole and are following in their predecessors’ footsteps. Others moved here from elsewhere, bringing with them inspiration found in their own hometowns.
If you’d thumbed through the local yellow pages in search of a physician in the 1970s, you would’ve come across the name Dr. Jim Little. Now, more than three decades later, you might think you’re seeing double, as you’ll find two Dr. Jim Littles listed. Elsewhere in that ’70s phone book was a group of businesses owned by a man named Love; still true, but the name Sean Love has supplanted that of John Love, Sean’s father.
Gavin Fine is among those who arrived from somewhere else—in his case, Chicago, where his inspiration came in the form of Richard Melman, founder of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, which owns more than eighty restaurants nationwide. And Clayton Andrews, managing broker for the Jackson Hole and Teton Valley operations of Sotheby’s International Realty, grew up in Tennessee, the son of an executive in charge of two Fortune 500 companies. “I chose not to go in the corporate direction,” Andrews says of his decision to move to Jackson Hole nineteen years ago. Yet here he is, the leader of a local real estate powerhouse. “It’s just been a progression of opportunities,” he says.
Following is a look at a few members of Jackson Hole’s new generation of leaders, a group of thirty- and forty-somethings who represent a cross-section of the valley’s professional fields: dining, real estate, medical, government, hospitality, recreation, art, education, retail, and nonprofit.
Gavin Fine
Fine Dining Restaurant Group
Gavin Fine is a restaurateur. But you can also think of him as a director leading a cast of waiters, bartenders, chefs, and other players through a daily performance titled Dining Out in Jackson Hole. Their stages are the Rendezvous Bistro, Q Roadhouse, and Il Villagio Osteria; there’s also a traveling troupe, moving around under the name of Bistro Catering.
“It’s theater for me,” Fine says. “The curtain goes up every night at 5:30. You’re putting on a show, and everyone has assigned roles.”
Growing up in restaurant-rich Chicago, Fine, now thirty-five, knew early on what he wanted to be when he grew up. And it’s been a good fit.
“I genuinely do like people, and I like to eat and drink,” he says.
Fine hopes to put Jackson Hole on the map as a food destination—“I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says—but also to provide “real jobs” in a transient community. His Fine Dining Restaurant Group, which employs about two hundred people, offers health insurance and a 401(k) plan; beyond that, however, Fine tries to make his restaurants places where workers feel valued.
“You need to be fair and honest and know when to be a cheerleader or a leader in sort of a lieutenant way,” he says. “All I preach all day is ‘just show customers you care.’”
Fine and his wife, Lea, have a one-year-old son named Bode—and no, he’s not a namesake of the famous alpine skier. In fact, Fine says, he himself is so busy these days that he doesn’t hit the ski slopes as often as he’d like. But work offers satisfactions, too.
“I totally believe in the beauty of good conversation over a good meal in a fun environment,” he says.
