Manie presents Dok with his mounted shoe to commemorate his 600th half marathon . |
TIME TO MOVE
In the early 2000s , when the Technicon began the process of amalgamating with Rand Afrikaans University to form the new University of Johannesburg ( UJ ), Dok was instrumental in the establishment of a new UJ hotel school . “ I went to the hierarchy at the technicon in 2003 and gave them a business plan stating how I saw the move of the old Smit Street campus to the new campus at Auckland Park , because Braamfontein had become unsuitable for our restaurant , especially during the evening , when it was unsafe for our clients and the students working in the restaurant until 11pm ,” explains Dok .
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scenery . It was just something unique for us in South Africa at that time , developed by Sol Kerzner . I got to know him very well through the years , and he once told me he was flying in an aeroplane over that part of the world , looked down , and said , this is where I want to build the Sun City Hotel .”
DIVERSE INTERESTS
Dok ’ s initial line of studies actually had nothing to do with hotels and the hospitality industry . Having matriculated from Hoër Seunskool Helpmekaar in Johannesburg in 1960 , he attended the University of Pretoria for one year in 1961 , as an extra-mural student working a full-time job , because he says the family did not have money for him to pursue full-time studies . “ I passed all my subjects , and earned a nice bursary to go study full-time at the Potchefstroom University , where I eventually earned six different degrees . The first three were Bachelor ’ s , Honours and Master ’ s degrees in South African history , with my Master ’ s thesis in 1966 on the Industrial Commission of Inquiry in 1897 and its political significance , all about Paul Kruger and the dynamite concession in the old Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek .”
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become the General Manager of the Safari Hotel in Windhoek , Namibia .
In 1973 , Dok decided that he wanted to return to the academic world , and says , “ I was very fortunate to get a lecturing position at the Technicon Witwatersrand Hotel School , with its well-known location in Smit Street , Braamfontein , including a restaurant that was open to the public . I ended up working there for 33 years as a lecturer , senior lecturer and departmental head , and then in 1987 I was promoted to later head of the school in 1987 ,” he says . Dok was also a founding member of both the South African Hotel School Association in 1996 and the Sub-Saharan Hotel Schools Association in 1994 .
In between lecturing , Dok decided to research the financial and economic side of the hospitality industry , which led him to complete an Honours and then Master ’ s in Business Administration ( MBA ) in the late 1970s , followed by a Doctorate in Business Administration ( DBA ) in 1980 , with a 500-plus page thesis on education in hotel management with specific
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“ I asked them to transfer me to the marketing department , specifically working on the funding side of it , and they gave me 39 months to raise funds for the building of the new hotel school . I was fortunate with the contacts I had built up over the years , including Sol Kerzner as well as many of the 5000
Dok and his beloved Petra .
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It was around this time that an advert in a Sunday newspaper sent Dok in a completely different direction . He read that the newly founded Hotel Board was looking for inspectors to grade hotels , and he decided to apply . Out of 400 applicants , he was selected for further training , and after a year as a trainee at several hotels , he was appointed as one of the seven new junior grading inspectors . However , he says , “ I soon realised that it was hard to grade hotels when you haven ’ t got a background in hotels , and at the time , there was no real educational hotel school in South Africa .”
That prompted Dok to actually go work in the hotel industry , and in the early part of his career , he did stints at various hotels in Cape Town , as well as in the UK , Netherlands and USA . Upon his return to SA , he was appointed as the General House Manager of the Elizabeth Sun Hotel in ( then ) Port Elizabeth . “ It was the first five-star hotel in the Eastern Cape , and at 27 , I was the youngest manager of a five-star hotel in South Africa ,” says Dok , adding that he then moved on to
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Dok was a highly respected highflyer in the hospitality industry for many years . |
students who had been in my classes , and were now general managers , owners of restaurants , directors of companies , etc . We ended up raising a sum of R32.4 million , which allowed us to build a state-ofthe-art new School of Tourism and Hospitality , with lovely lecturing rooms and computer room , as well as beautiful restaurants and bars , with lots of kitchens .”
Dok describes the new school as the “ cherry on the cake ” of his long involvement with the Technikon Witwatersrand , and he retired after the official opening early in 2005 , but he was soon on the go again , as he was head-hunted by Stenden University in the Netherlands , to serve on its advisory board . After six years on the board , he became chairperson , and still serves in that capacity today , at age 80 . “ Stenden has hotel school campuses in six countries , and that gave me the opportunity to travel a lot . I ’ m also quite involved with Stenden ’ s Stanley University campus in Port Alfred , which is one of the very few hotel schools in South Africa offering a full BComm degree in hotel management ,” he says .
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Images : SMacPix , Norm Johnson & courtesy Elbert Loubser , Dok Mornet |