La Gaceta Newspaper

Lisa Moore

Bronx native Lisa Moore dreamed of opening a bagel store as a teenager. For her first job, she worked at a bagel shop and loved it. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be what I build,’” she said. “Then I learned the bakers have to wake up at 3 in the morning and realized, ‘Oh, not for me.’”
Still, Moore loved the hospitality industry, and, thinking she might become a restaurant manager, studied restaurant and hotel management at Westchester Community College.
When she was 24, she met her soon-to-be husband during a July 4th weekend trip to Virginia Beach. He had five more months left serving in the U.S. Navy, and when his military career ended, he briefly moved to New York with her before the couple gave El Paso, Texas a try. “That was a completely different ballgame,” Moore said.
They lasted four months there before relocating again, landing in Tampa, where they’ve spent the last 30 years and raised their two children.
After their move to the area, Moore took a job with Applebee’s on 56th Street. She became the trainer for the store, working with everyone from management to bartenders and waitresses.
Moore wanted a family, though, and knew working in the restaurant industry wouldn’t be ideal for that. “So, I decided to get out of the restaurant business,” she said.
From there, she spent over six years as the restaurant manager for the Museum of Science and Industry. During her time at MOSI, she worked with the food and beverage director to launch its catering program.
Then her infant son fell ill with chronic sinus issues and she left her job for about a year to focus on his health.
When Moore returned to work, she took a job as catering sales manager for what is now ZooTampa at Lowry Park and also ran one of the restaurants at the zoo. “I loved every minute of it,” Moore said. “I got to think out of the box. We did 50 weddings a year.”
By the time she left the zoo, she was doing the work of five people and burned out. “Still, I loved working at the zoo. It was one of my favorite jobs in the world,” she said.
From there, she decided to move into the hotel business, thinking she might be able to get more steady work hours, “on the sales side of things and not the operations side,” she said.
Moore was hired to work in sales for a Clarion Hotel in the Westshore area. An older hotel, it closed and she took a sales manager position at a Clarion on Fowler Avenue. She spent two-and-a-half years there and during that time, moved into a senior sales manager role.
Moore loved the work but decided it was time to move on to something new, landing a sales role in the brand new La Quinta Inn & Suites Tampa North on Fletcher Avenue. “It opened in the recession of 2009 when everyone was struggling and laying off people left and right,” she said. She was only there for about a year when the owner decided to sell the struggling hotel.
Then Moore was approached by the owner of the Fairfield Inn & Suites down the street and became its director of sales for two years. After learning that hotel would be sold, she was recruited to serve as director of sales for the nearby Springhill Suites on Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, which had only been open for about a year at that point.
After five-and-a-half years, the hotel’s parent company – Sun Development & Management Corporation out of Indianapolis – tapped her to help with other hotels for the company and named her a regional director of sales.
While she oversaw sales for a number of hotels in Florida for the company and across brands, including Marriotts and Hilton Garden Inns, Moore also handled properties in other states, such as Georgia and New Jersey.
Eventually, the company sold off several of the hotels she oversaw and asked her to relocate to New Jersey, which she turned down. “I was not feeling the cold,” Moore said.
In 2018, she moved over to the Hilton Garden Inn in Wesley Chapel and the nearby Hampton Inn & Suites. It wasn’t long before she was also overseeing sales for a Hilton Garden Inn in Orlando, near the University of South Florida, and was named regional sales director by the parent company, Emerald Hospitality Associates.
It was through this role that Moore was encouraged to become heavily involved in the community, which she found was a natural fit for her. “They’re very big on being out in the community,” she said.
As the Hilton Garden Inn’s community liaison, she joined the Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel, serving on the board for six years and taking on the president position from 2024 to 2025. She loved the club’s various service projects and events, including raising thousands of dollars for the Pasco County Fire Rescue and the Pasco Sheriff’s Office.
The funds were raised through various events – clay shooting, breakfast with Santa, and Halloween-themed events. The club gives back to the community in other ways, as well, including hosting annual Veterans Day luncheons at a Pasco County nursing home and partnering with a home for foster children for special outings, such as movies, ice skating, and holidays.
Moore has sat on the board for the New Tampa YMCA for the past four years and currently serves as the vice chair. “I have a passion for giving back and giving back to kids is really good for me,” she said.
She really stepped up for the board over the past year, helping to organize a casino night fundraiser at her hotel for the YMCA. Because of her work, she’s been named the organization’s Volunteer of the Year.
Moore has also been tapped to serve as the board chair for the new YMCA opening in Wesley Chapel this September.
She’s also heavily involved in the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce. She’s been an ambassador for the organization for 14 years, sitting on the board for four and serving as the membership chair for three. “What I do as the membership chair is I look for members to join our chamber so we can help with their business,” she said. “I’m a connector. I love to connect people. I love networking.”
Moore was also asked to join the foundation guild for the John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, slated to open in Wesley Chapel in 2027, and has since been named chair. She comes to the hospital with her own personal story to share as her son suffered from chronic sinus issues as a young child, enduring everything from tubes in his ears to having his tonsils and adenoids removed. Eventually, it was a surgery at John Hopkins that cured him, she said.
She also serves as an ambassador for Metropolitan Ministries.
Between work and these various organizations, Moore is constantly on the go. “I’m very busy, but I love it,” she said. “If I wasn’t busy, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”