Industry & Services >> CEO Interviews >> July 14, 2003
FRED S. KUMMER is President and Chief Executive Officer of HBE
Corporation and Adam's Mark Hotels & Resorts. He is the President and
Founder of St. Louis-based HBE Corporation, parent company of Adam's
Mark Hotels & Resorts, and has spent over 40 years building the St.
Louis-based corporation from a one-man general contracting firm to a
diversified corporation. Early in his career as a general contractor,
Mr. Kummer was involved in constructing a number of healthcare
facilities. He soon recognized the industry's need for a single-source
planner, designer and builder that could effectively combine cost
control, function and budget. In 1960, he founded Hospital Building and
Equipment Company, which today as HBE Corporation is the largest design-
build firm specializing in healthcare and financial facilities. He
launched the Adam's Mark Hotels & Resorts chain in 1973 with his first
hotel ' in Charlotte, North Carolina ' and today, the chain consists of
23 upscale hotels in 13 states, with over 13,000 rooms and 1.3 million
square feet of meeting space. Adam's Mark ranks as one of the largest
privately owned and operated companies in the hospitality industry. He
attended the University of Missouri-Rolla and graduated in 1955 with a
Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. In 1984, he received
the degree, Doctor of Engineering, honoris causa, from the University of
Missouri-Rolla. Mr. Kummer served on the University of Missouri Board of
Curators from 1987 to 1992. Profile
Mr. Kummer: At HBE Corporation we work on the construction side. We
design and build: we design everything we build and we build everything
we
