Valerie’s rules

PALMER — On more or less a whim, Valerie James and her then 14-year-old son zig-zagged and meandered from their home in Florida to their new home in Alaska.

With that much time spent in a car, a mother and teen son are bound to get on each other’s nerves. Valerie, a longtime teacher of children with special needs, decided to embrace that irritation by having her son write down everything she did to ‘tick him off’ and she did the same. The trick to the game though was that for every negative thing one said about the other, they had to say two positive things.

This game found its way into critiques of the motel rooms they’d stay in on their adventure and they began to journal those observations, too, noting whether a room was clean, presentable, well designed, and what small touches — fresh baked cookies at Drury Hotels standing out above the rest — they noticed.

Little did Valerie know that exercise would wind up setting the stage for her ability to stay in Alaska, once health problems made her unable to teach in a school setting.

“I came to Alaska to be a special ed teacher… but I got sick and had to have a pacemaker and defibrillator put in, so I can no longer teach,” she said. “I got my son involved in biking to get away from mom a little bit… At the end of bike season, we were running out of money and decided we’d put our tails between our legs and head back to Florida.”

In his discovery of mountain biking, Valerie’s son came under the tutelage of Tony Berberich, the owner of Backcountry Bike and Ski, who also happened to own the Pioneer Motel next door.

When he heard the James family was having to move back south, he came up with an idea to help them stay.

“Tony said, you wanna be manager? I said, Tony, I know nothing about motels, but he said, ‘you’re from New York and you don’t take a lot of crap, you’ll do fine,” Valerie said.

A longtime Palmer establishment, the reputation of the Pioneer Motel had fallen off considerably in recent years.

“My son had named it the Pioneer ‘Crack n Ho’ Motel — that’s basically the reputation this place had,” Valerie said. “I wanted to stay in Alaska; I want to die here. That Pioneer Peak is God’s glorious gift. I wanted to stay and make the motel better. It was one of the worst.”

The first thing Valerie did was bring in all new staff. Then, she gutted all the rooms, and had an artist friend come in to paint murals on the walls. She invited those displaced by the Sockeye and Sutton fires to stay for free, and when the family of the five little girls killed in the Butte trailer fire came to Alaska for their funeral services, she allowed them to stay for free as well.

Health problems may have kept Valerie from pursuing her passion of teaching special needs children, but her background in the field proved valuable in her new vocation.

“I asked Tony if we could hire special needs workers, and at first he wasn’t too keen, but he came around to it,” Valerie said.

Assisting the full-time staff, special needs workers from local group homes come in to help.

“They’re nicknamed ‘the strippers,’” Valerie said. “Basically, they come through, pick up the garbage, the dirty linens and bring them to the sorting room. Once they’ve mastered that skill, they move on to assisting a housekeeper — they’re learning a tradeable skill.”

Among those who worked for Valerie was Keith Aumavae, who battled mental illness prior to his death in November when State Troopers found his car at the bottom of a cliff near the Knik Goose Bay Airport, nearly a month after he’d gone missing.

“Nobody would give him a chance, but he did wonderfully here,” Valerie said.

She said she had three special needs workers this year, and is hoping to get more.

“The staff is paid per room rather than per hour. I learned that in the first year when we had staff come into a room and turn the TV on,” Valerie said. “They’d be sitting around watching TV and I’d be paying them. Other housekeepers like to smoke, and it’s not fair if they get paid as someone who is not. With the per room rate, I feel like the housekeepers who do work do very well. The special needs we play per hour, until they can beat the room rate, and then we put them on the per room rate. That’s more money for them.”

James also began using more discerning methods when it came to allowing long-term guests, running their names through Courtview, checking references and checking in on them every couple of days.

“In summer I never had any issues. It’s the winter time we get people who are homeless; people that have been evicted right before the winter cutoff and all of the trouble we’ve had has been from them,” Valerie said. “Last year we were blessed to house two teachers who were trying to decide whether they’d want to stay. We’ve had several slope workers, who were here two weeks on, two weeks off, and last year we started working with people at the hospital. Last year we had one amputee, one who was on a feeding tube, one pregnancy and the rest were undergoing chemotherapy.”

Keeping tight rules on things like smoking tobacco and cannabis, have also helped turn the Pioneer around.

“All of my guests have to sign a sheet agreeing to no smoking. I know Alaska is pot friendly, but I’m a mom so I’m not pot-friendly — just go for a walk and smoke it,” she said. “My staff has all been instructed to know the guests’ names. In two days they’re expected to know all of their names, and if not, it’s ‘yes ma’am, no ma’am.’ I was military; I was married to a military man, so I know how far respect can get you.”

Add it all up, and nearly four years into Valerie’s run as manager, the Pioneer is ranked No. 1 in Palmer on Trip Advisor, she said. The biggest challenge, Valerie says, has been putting the motel’s reputation in its past.

“Getting rid of the image of what we were,” she said. “When you pull in it doesn’t look like it’s changed much, but I tell people, don’t judge a book by its cover. Once you walk into a room people are pleasantly surprised at how clean everything is.”