Joining the family firm, Bill asked me to run the company's hotel division. At that time, it consisted of a hole in the ground in Arlington that would be Marriott's first motor hotel.

"When I look back, I have to laugh at how little we knew when we started out in lodging," Bill Marriott says. "In today's competitive environment, we'd have been eaten alive."

In 1964, J.W. Marriott Sr. appointed his son president of the corporation. Eight years later, Bill became CEO and began moving aggressively to expand the hotel business. Marriott opened its 100th hotel in 1981.

By the mid-‘80s, Marriott had created hotel brands from the budget-minded Courtyard by Marriott to the high-end Renaissances and was opening an average of two new hotels a week.

Then came the real-estate recession of the late 1980s. Marriott split into two companies: Host Marriott owns the real estate, and Marriott International manages the hotels. He sold the airline-catering business. By 1995, both companies were booming, and Bill Marriott was hailed as a visionary.

Today Marriott has 2,200 hotels, inns, and resort properties. It operates in the United States and 64 countries, and the properties include the Renaissance Hotel Group and the Ritz-Carlton hotels. "We want to be the number one presence in lodging all over the world," Marriott says.

Bill Marriott credits his success to the company his company keeps. Training promoting, and rewarding "associates" is a top priority. Fifty percent of managers come from the hourly ranks.

In fact, Marriott is the pied piper for the hospitality business, urging young people to seize the opportunities it offers. In 1989, he started the "Bridges ... From School to Work" program to train young people with disabilities for jobs. Two years ago, he helped launch DC's Marriott Hospitality Public Charter High School – the first public high school of its kind.

Attitude is everything, Marriott tells the students. It is easier, he believes, to hire a good person with the right attitude and train him or her in the technicalities of a job than it is to teach a technically competent person how to smile.

For Bill Marriott, there is plenty to smile about. "I love to see people grow," he says.