Monday, July 19, 2004 The thin line between work and play
In uncovering the many layers of Bob Zozobrado, Jenara Regis Newman glimpses the secret to his success(es).
If there’s anyone who’s having a lot of fun while working, it has to be Bob Zozobrado, Cebu’s export to Manila, he who graces Manila’s party scene and writes about it besides, in his column Bob’s Zoo in the Manila Standard.
Born in Cebu city, Roberto Zamora Zozobrado is a product of Cebu’s schools--Cebu Normal University, San Carlos and Cebu Institute of Medicine--until he decided to go for the course he liked best, AB English at the Lyceum of the Philippines, after taking a special course on speech and drama at the University of California-Berkeley.
He worked in the tour and travel industry, starting at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California, as tour desk clerk, then in Pan-Am, Cebu before he transferred to Pan-Am, Manila. Then he went to Hyatt Regency, to Thomas Cook, to APC-Thai International and was with Northwest Airlines from 1994 until he retired in 2000 as its president and general manager and as director of PacSports, Ltd. in order to devote his time to what he loves doing best. He set up IdeaZ, a public relations and events management company. Starting with a staff of two in May 2000, he now has eight.
"PR work," he says, “is really me”. He has been so lucky to have two lucrative initial accounts which he has up to now, Citibank and Thai Airways. Added to them are, among others, the Macau Government Tourist Office, Carnation, Nike golf, Fubu and Borders, a home furnishing and furniture shop owned by Alice Streegan Cruz. He enjoys PR work so much that it seems he’s just having fun and getting paid for it too.
What would be truly work for him would be his teaching jobs. He taught travel and tourism management in St. Scholastica’s from 1976 to 1980. These days, he teaches World Tourism at St. Benedict College, Events Management at the Far Eastern University, and Travel Agency Management at the Lyceum of the Philippines.
His other affiliations include being director of Budget Travel and Tours since 1993 and, for about a year (July 2003-Aprill 2004), he was vice president for public relations of the Resort Club of the Pacific.
That Bob is very good at what he does is attested by the various awards he has received, including the Operations Homestretch Award in 1976 and President’s Sales award in 1980 given by Pan-Am, and plaques of appreciation from Thomas Cook, from the American Society of Travel Agents, from the Philippine Association of Travel Agencies and from the Network of Independent Travel Agencies, the last two given to him when he retired in 2000.
Bob may be a party animal but he is very much a hands-on father to his three children, Juan Carlos, 23, Ana Beatriz, 21 and Jose Miguel, 18.
Following in their father’s footsteps are Juan Carlos, graduating this year with a ComArts degree from the Ateneo (he is also vocalist of a rock band), and Jose Miguel, taking up Hotel and Restaurant Management in the College of St. Benilde. He takes parenting so seriously he wishes there would be a school on parenting to make him an even better father. Which simply shows that beneath all that glamour and glitz, the fun, the froth and frippery, Bob Zozobrado is very much a man of sense and sensibility.
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