Aug. 31--Josee Covington gives advice on packing for a trip and running a business

When you pack for a trip, let a pro show you how.

Nancy Finch and her friend Josee Covington were going to snowy New York last winter. I arrived at the train station with all these big bags, Finch said. I had boots and coats and sweaters.

Covington, president and CEO of Covington International Travel, brought along just a little suitcase for the four-day trip.

"She has it down to a science," Finch recalled. "She took me to her room and gave me a lesson in how to pack."

"Take everything you want to take, then put half back into the closet," Covington confided. "You'll still take too much."

After more than 40 years in the travel industry, the Luxembourg-born Josee Galle Covington applies the same kind of sharp-edged thought to packing for a short excursion as she does to running her

business.

Last year, Covington International's total sales exceeded $83 million in hotel, auto rental, vacation, and meeting and corporate-incentive bookings for business and vacation travelers.

But the recession and slowdown in corporate and leisure travel have put pressure on the industry and on her business. Sales are down from a year ago.

Working from offices in the Innsbrook Corporate Center, downtown Richmond and Charlottesville, the firms 90 employees provide services to more than 35,000 clients.

The 2009 Business Travel News survey of U.S. travel-management companies ranked Covington International as No. 32 by number of transactions.

Covington International handles travel needs for corporate clients ranging from small local companies to Fortune 500 giants across the country.

Her success springs from "knowing your trade, being well-equipped with knowledge," Covington said. "And you have to be service-oriented."

Despite heavy competition from online travel services boasting of low prices, Covington International still thrives by providing the personal touch. "Here, you can look us in the eye," the entrepreneur said,

"and wring our throat."

Customers calling Covington Internationals three offices 24 hours a day talk to a receptionist--"who speaks American," she said--not an automated telephone system.

"I want that first voice the customer hears at Covington to be a human being," Covington said.

As chairman of First Market Bank and former chairman and CEO of Ukrop's Super Markets, James E. Ukrop is more than a little familiar with customer service.

For instance, Ukrop noted, a Covington International representative "always checks with us before we leave [on a trip] to make sure everything is in order and calls to make sure we had a good time. She provides excellent customer service."

And despite his local promience, Ukrop doesn't think Covington International was giving him special treatment: "I think that's just part of their standard operating procedure."

In March, Covington International went toe to toe with American Express for Dominion Resources Inc.'s corporate travel business, worth several million dollars to the winner of the bidding. Covington International won the account.

"Her organization can compete with the largest organizations out there," said Donna Kelliher, director of travel and corporate services at Dominion Resources.

"Typically, its a 60-to 90-day transition period when you switch travel-management companies,Kelliher said. They partnered with us and we did it in two weeks. Those sorts of things don't happen

unless you have a well-oiled machine."

Covington International is a family business.

Covington brought son Paul to the office when he was 3 years old.

"He stamped brochures, she said. No nepotism here."

Today, W. Paul Covington is the company's chief financial officer and chief information officer. And, he said of his mom, "she's pretty good as a boss."

Youngest son Denny is the assistant manager of Covington International's James Center office, while oldest son Joe has forged a career as an attorney in Washington.

Though she has no plans to retire--"ever"--Covington intends to turn over the company to her sons eventually.

"They will run the company as well, indeed better, than I did because they are well-equipped with long-term experience, "she said.

Qualities beyond profit matter to her. "Beautiful" is one of the most frequent adjectives she uses to describe people, deals, performance, work and places.

Her office reflects her aesthetic sense: She can see trees and a lake through the windows, and artwork graces the walls and tables. "My taste is everything," Covington said.

Fluent in four languages and, not surprisingly, world-traveled, Covington is deeply involved in the Richmond area's community and life, from the Richmond Symphony and the VCU Foundation to Art

Works, the Innsbrook Rotary Club and Virginians for High-Speed Rail.

"We fuss about it a lot and complain about it a lot," she said of the capital city, "but it's a wonderful place to live."

Covington has been showered with honors, including being conferred Luxembourg's Ordre de la Couronne de Chene--Order of the Oak Crown--for entrepreneurship in commerce and contributions to the arts.

And she treasures her Luxembourgian roots: Her BMW's bumper sports an oval sticker with the international country code L.

Covington met her husband, Dr. William D. Covington, a Richmond dentist and adjunct faculty member of VCU's School of Dentistry, at a masked ball in Luxembourg when he was a young airman in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s.

"He asked me for a dance," she said approvingly. "That was good."

Covington was educated in Luxembourg at the Lycee de Jeunes Filles and at the Conservatory of Music.

Though her training was as a cellist, Covington landed a job with American Express' travel service on New York's Wall Street when she came to the U.S. in 1958.

"That's where I learned how to price travel," Covington said.

After commuting by bus from New York to Virginia for a year while her husband was attending MCV dental school--"But that was love, you see," she said--Covington finally found a job in Richmond with AAA's travel agency.

She worked there with a travel-savvy Frenchwoman, Suzanne Poupore. "I said to my friend Suzanne, 'How would you like to come with me if I opened an agency?' "

Then she telegraphed her family in Luxembourg: "Starting my own business. Need money. Send me lots. Love, Josee."

Her grandmother staked her for the business--and charged her interest on the money. "She was a very wise woman about finance, " Covington said.

Renting 500 square feet of space at 700 E. Main St., Covington set up her vacation travel business in 1967, when tickets were handwritten and technology meant the telephone.

"We thought we might do this for five years," she said. "But you know, you have responsibilities to your employees, you have loyalty to your clients and relations with your vendors--and we were having too much fun."

Gradually corporations and professional firms came to Covington to make business travel arrangements for them. "Can you get me to New York? Can you get me to L.A.? Can you get me to Tokyo?" she recalled them asking.

Though her business reach and responsibilities have grown enormously, she carries them lightly.

"I don't worry. I don't get tense," Covington said. "The business has been just a joy to me. It's been easy."

Covington and her husband have themselves traveled on archaeological tours to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Greece and Egypt led by anthropologist Walter Witschey, director emeritus of the Science

Museum of Virginia and now professor of anthropology and science education at Longwood University in Farmville.

"I still get very excited about travel," Covington said. "There's so much to see."

While traveling, Witschey said, Covington is "totally unflappable."

"One of the delights about traveling with Josee is not only the marvelous and extensive knowledge she has," he said, but the fact that she's always dressed like a fashion plate.

"We could be going to a tropical rain forest, the jungle," Witschey said, "and she will have on a knockout blouse and scarf.

"And," he said, "her hair will be perfectly coifed."

Contact Peter Bacque at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.com.

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