{"id":407,"date":"2010-07-15T15:17:40","date_gmt":"2010-07-15T15:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2010\/07\/15\/managing-a-winery-just-another-liberal-art-for-lentych-89\/"},"modified":"2010-07-15T15:17:40","modified_gmt":"2010-07-15T15:17:40","slug":"managing-a-winery-just-another-liberal-art-for-lentych-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2010\/07\/15\/managing-a-winery-just-another-liberal-art-for-lentych-89\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing a Winery Just Another Liberal Art for Lentych &#8217;89"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<i>Howard W. Hewitt, Omena, MI.<\/i> &ndash; Tony Lentcyh &rsquo;89 is always stretching his liberal arts education. &ldquo;I always tell people &lsquo;when you get asked if you can do particular job, always tell them sure,&rsquo; &rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the liberal arts.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Tony has a charm and easy-going demeanor which probably would convince most people even when he&rsquo;s bluffing &ndash; if you can tell.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Lentych spent six years in Wabash admissions before working in Indianapolis and then Lansing, MI., in the public sector. His career was focused around public housing. But just a few years ago he was ready for a new direction.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" align=\"left\" width=\"275\" height=\"379\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/www2images\/Tony275.jpg\" \/>&ldquo;I was ready for a break and I was tired of politics,&rdquo; he said. So when a friend was looking for a general manager to run the family Leelanau Cellars winery Tony said &ldquo;sure.&rdquo;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">He hasn&rsquo;t regretted it for a moment. He runs the business operation of Michigan&rsquo;s largest wine producer and has seen business more than double since he joined the company.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Tony is a great illustration of how a liberal arts education can take any young man wherever they want to go and perhaps a few places they never imagined. You&rsquo;ll see more on Tony&rsquo;s career path from Classics major to manager of Michigan&rsquo;s biggest producing winery soon on the Wabash website.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">During a drive and walk-around tour Wednesday afternoon at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leelanaucellars.com\/\">Leelanau Cellars <\/a>Tony mixed Wabash stories into a vineyard visit, quick tour of a production facility, and then a little time to taste some wine.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Known on campus as a gregarious and fun-loving guy during his four years in school and six more in admissions, he&rsquo;s the kind of man who has never met a stranger. During the tour he visited vineyard workers, his winemaker, who holds the distinction of being the first female head winemaker in Michigan, and had fun with tasting room employees.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">He&rsquo;s improved business practices and hired local people with strong connections to the Leelanau area into the winery.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Like many of these visits the last 30-45 minutes was consumed with talk about Wabash. He&rsquo;s convinced the diversity of his Wabash education is one of his biggest assets in dealing with the variety of people and challenges he faces each day.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">Managing a winery, Tony said, is really managing a farm but instead of a fruit stand &ldquo;we have a tasting room.&rdquo;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">He goes about his management style with a smile. Perhaps it&rsquo;s because when he looks out the winery each day he sees Grand Traverse Bay, sailboats and people enjoying the area&rsquo;s incredible beauty.<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&lsquo;Sure,&rsquo; who wouldn&rsquo;t want a job like that?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;Howard W. Hewitt, Omena, MI. &ndash; Tony Lentcyh &rsquo;89 is always stretching his liberal arts education. &ldquo;I always tell people &lsquo;when you get asked if you can do particular job, always tell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}