Jorgen Blum: Jorgen Blum, who has died aged 85, was a towering influence in hotel management training in Ireland over almost 30 years while he headed the internationally-famous school at Shannon.
Many of the graduates who passed through his hands have gone on to manage some of the best known hotels in the world.
He insisted on the highest standards from his students during the four-year course, part of which was spent abroad to widen their experience.
Ernest Albert Blum was born on August 18th, 1917, in the village of Aigle near Montreux in Switzerland, where his father ran a railway café and did part-time farming. The son opted for a career in hotel management and trained at the Ecole Hoteliere in Zurich. After graduation he worked at the Carlton Hotel at the fashionable ski resort of St Moritz.
During the second World War, he served, like most Swiss men, in the army. After the war, he was attracted to Scandinavia, and worked in hotels in Norway and Sweden. It was during his time there that he adopted the Norwegian first name of Jorgen which he preferred to his own.
While working in the Hotel Metropole in Folkestone, England, he met Gillian Gregory whom he married in 1950. They later moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands, where Jorgen managed several of the top hotels.
Their two eldest children, Jennifer and Christopher, were born in Jersey. The family then moved to Switzerland, where Jorgen ran a hotel and catering complex at the ski resort of Villars-sur-Oblon in the mountains above his native village of Aigle, where his third child, Brian, was born.
He was finding the work at Villars rather exhausting when, in 1957, he saw an advertisement in a hotel and catering magazine for the post of director of the Shannon College of Hotel Management, which had been set up in 1951 by Brendan O'Regan. He applied for the post, and was accepted, taking over from the first director, Felix de Parcher, who was also Swiss.
Jorgen Blum and his family found the transition from Switzerland to 1950s Ireland difficult at first but gradually settled in. The college was then housed in Nissen huts and only later moved to its quarters in the new hotel.
Jorgen Blum modelled the college on the renowned Ecole Hoteliere in Lausanne. He introduced training methods new to Ireland which included mentoring, co-operation with the industry, sponsorship and patronage. The college developed an early reputation for excellence, and attracted students also from overseas.
Students found him a strict disciplinarian who insisted on neat dress of blazer, white shirt and tie and tidy hair-cuts, but also found him fun-loving and gregarious. He kept in touch with as many as possible in later years.
He used his extensive contacts within the international hotel industry to secure posts for his students with companies like Movenpick in Switzerland and Trust House Forte in Britain. He invited distinguished hoteliers around the world to become class patrons, and attracted leading Irish professionals as examiners and tutors.
He had little time for hobbies but read extensively in his spare time.
The family lived first on the outskirts of Limerick at Castletroy. Gillian Blum worked with disadvantaged children in the city several times a week, and their three children attended local schools. They moved to Cratloe overlooking Bunratty Castle.
In 1983, he was due to retire but was asked to stay on until 1985. He retired to England, and was asked by Sir Charles Forte to work as a consultant to Trust House Forte. This entailed extensive travelling and he finally retired in 1994. He kept in contact with the college and attended alumni dinners and anniversaries. He lived in Guilford, Surrey, where he died on March 30th.
He is survived by his wife Gillian; daughter Jennifer, and sons Christopher and Brian.
Jorgen Blum: born August 18th, 1917; died March 30th, 2003.