Who am I?
My name is McKenzie Carroll. I am currently living in Montana but was born and raised in Northern Michigan. One of my favorite things to do when I am not working is to bike or take a walk with my dogs.
Education
I obtained my bachelor’s degree in hospitality and tourism management focusing on tourism, recreation, and leisure from Grand Valley State University in May 2018.
In November 2020, after the world started to come out of lock down from Covid-19, I completed my master’s degree in human resources management focusing on human and organization development and online teaching and learning. I received high honors for my grades all while working full time.
While attending, I learned a lot about the level of importance people are to an organization. Team members are an organization’s most valuable asset. Creating positive work environments that foster learning and growth has a higher retention and an easier time with overall employee relations.
Career
My love for hospitality started in 2010 when I started working as Boo-Boo Bear at a Yogi Bear Jellystone Park Campground. When I was not in costume, I planned events and did activities with kids staying at the park.
Fast forward to 2014, I started working as a zipline and Segway tour guide for Boyne Highlands, a ski and golf resort in Michigan. This gave me the chance to take on a supervisor role for a team of 12 guides.
After a while, I was offered an internship in the HR department in 2017. By 2018 I was able to move into a Human Resources Manager role thanks to the amazing development mindset of the manager I had at the time. The J1 international student worker program at the highlands was one of my favorite experiences i had. Being the recruiter took me to 12 different countries in 2 years. I was able to meet with the students in their home country, learn their culture, and when they arrived in the US they had a friendly familiar face to welcome them. I learned a lot at Boyne Highlands, one of my greatest successes was being voted, by my peers, team member of the month 2 times in 3 years and administrative team member of the year for 2019.
In late 2020, I decided to move away from hospitality to work in another passion of mine, substance use disorder. I worked for 6 months as the deputy director of Human Resources at Bear River Health, a substance use disorder clinic in Michigan.
I returned to Boyne Resorts at Boyne Mountain, a different resort in the same family of resorts I worked at previously. While at Boyne Mountain, I was a recruiter and generalist. I handled all everyday HR and recruiting tasks for the resort and 4 retail stores.
In 2021 I was promoted to Director of Recruitment and Development for Boyne Resort corporate. I was given the opportunity to hone my recruitment and training skills in this role over the last 2.5 years, which included 12 resorts and 7 different retail stores. In 2023 was was the project manager for a company-wide learning management system implementation.
Over my time at these companies, I’ve learned systems including iCIMS, Microsoft Nav Dynamics, UKG, ADP, Schoox, and Predictive Index, and more.