Tauck, the family-owned tour operator that started in 1925, has announced a plan of succession that was designed with an eye on the next century, as Tauck concludes its first century this year.
As of next October, all the members of Tauck’s leadership team will move up a notch in the hierarchy. Arthur Tauck Jr., the son of the founder, will move from chairman to chairman emeritus. Dan Mahar, son-in-law of Arthur Jr., will move from CEO to chairman. Jennifer Tombaugh will move from president to CEO. And Jeremy Palmer will move from COO to president. To fully grasp the significance of this development, it’s helpful to cast a quick look at where Tauck has come from.
In the travel industry, between the corporate giants, such as airlines, hotel chains and credit card companies on top, and the mom-and-pop retailers on street level who serve the public, are the tour operators. They are never as big as the giant corporations. They are highly individualized companies that provide a specialized kind of service that is multi-layered and detailed. They are not offering mass-produced items off an assembly line, and there is only so big they can get, or want to get. They coordinate all the various products and services in the travel industry, including those of the airlines and hotels, as well as tour guides, attractions and restaurants at the destinations. In that space, the domain of the tour operators, none has a more potent brand or history than Tauck. The company is legendary, and historical many times over.
The Tauck origin story has risen to the status of myth. It’s the story of the young Arthur Tauck Senior in 1925, a bank employee who invented a coin tray that could quantify and store coins. He hit the road as a traveling salesman of his invention, and while traveling hit upon the notion to take other people along to share the joy of travel.
Etched forever into the company ethos is the first ad he put in the Newark Evening News to advertise his tours. It was a simple description that still underlies the Tauck product: “All I want is a congenial party. Ten minutes after leaving Newark, we shall be just one happy party, properly chaperoned, out for a real good time. I want no grouches or pessimists. There will always be from one to three cars in the party. The more the merrier.”
Though group touring goes back to the time of hunter gatherers, Tauck was one of the originators of what became the modern escorted tour. At the company’s beginning in 1925, it was still the dawn of the automobile age, the earliest days of major highways and road travel across America. So these road tours were an innovation that couldn’t have existed for long before Tauck came along.
Without Tauck, the tour industry might have been squelched before it ever got off the ground. Tauck played a major role in the history of touring when an examiner from the Interstate Commerce Commission declared that the operation of tours from state to state was in violation of ICC rules. “This whole industry is illegal,” he said. Arthur Tauck fought the ICC and took the case all the way to the Supreme Court. To bolster his case, he joined with other tour operators to form the National Tour Brokers Association, which survives today as the National Tour Association (NTA). The tour operators won their case. Tauck was also one of the 10 founding members of the U.S. Tour Operators Association (USTOA) in 1972, and has continued to be a major force in the organization ever since.
Arthur Jr., the son of the founder, started working with the company in 1950, first as a tour director, then moved to a desk job in 1954. In 1958 his father announced that he was going fishing, and gave the reins to Arthur Jr. He was 25. He had to learn to run the company, “like diving off a diving board,” he said. In 1960, Arthur Sr. died, leaving Arthur Jr. truly on his own to run the company.
But he continued along the lines of his father’s entrepreneurial instincts and the original vision and ethos, and the company continued to thrive, grow and innovate. Tauck was one of the first to introduce air travel into the touring package with its first air tour to Nova Scotia in 1958. In the 1970s, Tauck brought helicopters into the mix with “heli hiking” tours in the Canadian Rockies, taking clients to mountain tops for hiking and alpine views. But Tauck was strictly a North American operator until 1991, when it introduced trips to Europe and Australia. In ’94 it added Central America; in ’95 China and Southeast Asia; and in ’97 the Middle East and South America. Today, it operates on seven continents, to more than 100 destinations in more than 70 countries.
In the early 1990s, the company started making plans for family succession, and learned ways to keep the company on course through the inevitable changes in the tours marketplace and the family business. It brought in a consultant who specialized in family succession, who explained that 70 percent of family businesses don’t survive a second generation and 90 percent don’t survive a third. As Arthur Jr. was looking toward an eventual retirement, Tauck began planning for its third generation taking over. With help from the succession specialist, the company created a family constitution, establishing the terms under which family members might join the business. It included the requirement to establish oneself in another endeavor outside the family business before being allowed to join. The structure helped the company move through its third generation, and to continue to thrive and grow as a fourth generation now approaches its own maturity.
In the 1990s, day-to-day responsibility moved to the third generation. Arthur became chairman, backing off a little, but still closely watching every move of the company, participating in policy decisions, reading every guest comment card and sharing his insights with the next generation. Arthur’s adult children, Robin and Peter took the helm of Tauck. In 2008, Dan Mahar, the husband of Arthur’s daughter Kiki took over as CEO.
Dan Mahar joined the company in 1996. He served initially as director of marketing, then vice president of sales and marketing. He started a new ventures group that led to the development of Tauck’s family travel series Tauck Bridges, and also led the company’s entrance into the river cruising market.
Before joining Tauck, Dan had worked in strategic planning and product line management for Nortel. Later he worked with Global Crossing in new business development, and launched their internet services company.
I spoke to Dan Mahar this week and he shared some of the thinking behind the current moves. The company is “thinking ahead,” planning for the 2030-2040 timeframe, and nurturing its younger members, preparing them to take on more responsibility over time. As Jennifer Tombaugh takes on the responsibility of day-to-day management, Dan will be able to back off a bit, and spend more time with his wife Kiki and their five children.
He will continue to work with Jennifer and Jeremy in a mentorship role and in forming long-term strategy, and he’ll work to help to sustain the company’s vital relationships with suppliers and others.
This week’s announcements are part of the company’s long-term strategy, and its need to invest in people and bring them into the process of development of the company
Jennifer Tombaugh has been with the company since 2001, and took over as president in 2011. During her tenure she has worked in practically every facet of the company. She led sales and marketing, worldwide operations, reservations, IT, global impact, HR and led the creation of the 2013-2017 strategic plan.
Jeremy Palmer joined in 2007 and became COO in 2021. During his time at Tauck he has led worldwide operations, Tauck director resources, sales and marketing, reservations, Tauck Ventures and strategic planning.
What does not appear on Dan Mahar’s resume, but is a vital part of the picture is what I have called a “sunshiny personality.” He brings a ray of happiness along with his presence in any situation. It’s hard to imagine his face without a smile. He credits his mother with passing on her sunny disposition.
“My mom said, ‘Every morning when I come downstairs and make my coffee, I look out into the garden and I see God, and that starts my day. There are blessings all around, if we are open to seeing them.’”
It works. That positive attitude brings an extra oomph to every endeavor. Hats off to Tauck, and congratulations as you enter your next century.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.
