Career Highlight – Andrew Pearson

I started in hospitality out of school, working in pubs and night clubs which rolled into an Assistant Manager role in a local high-end restaurant with a boutique hotel attached. Those late nights meant we often used our local casino to relax and eat after midnight; and from the moment I started visiting casinos, I loved the atmosphere in the air of people winning and losing money.

When an opportunity arose to start a dealing school, I took on the challenge and a big pay cut to get into this business.  All through the school, our trainers spoke about working on cruise ships at least for one contract.

In 2003, I joined my first ship, the Carnival Fascination, before also working on Princess and Holland America.  I worked my way through the positions, from Dealer up to Casino Manager, before being asked to work as Fleet Casino Manager with CCL in 2012.

I found love at sea and after getting married in 2014, I was ready to transition to a land-based job and fortunately there was an opening on the PCL/HAL Operations team, where I have now been for the last 8+ years.

In my current role, I provide support to all our operations across PCL, HAL and SBN, the rest of our operations team and work closely with all the other areas of the shoreside GCO team.  I handle much of our capital spend, including all our slot machines each year and in the picture, while writing this I am currently visiting our newest ship, the Sun Princess in the shipyard in Italy (it isn’t very warm 😊).

In a world where people jump from company to company, I am often asked why/how I have stayed with GCO for 20 years. While working on ships, it was always the reactions of people while I was on vacation when I told them what I did that made me feel lucky for the path I had chosen, but in reality, it boils down to two main reasons.

The first reason is simple, this company truly recognizes hard work and dedication and rewards those that show the commitment to their role with a true career path.

The second reason is more personal. The new buzz phrase on LinkedIn is to never refer to your company as your family, but this simply will never be possible for me when it comes to GCO. From the highest levels down, I have always been treated with respect and care that makes it a pleasure to come to work each day. Everyone pulls together when needs must, like a family and lets their hair down when they can, again just like a family would.