A Queenstowner who died recently was a distinguished hotelier-turned-business consultant and fitness fanatic who stood out for his charismatic personality.
Raised in Germany, Peter Lohmann worked his way up in the hotel world and, soon after arriving in New Zealand in 1976, was managing Tourist Hotel Corporation (THC) hotels in Tongariro, then Rotorua.
He moved to Queenstown in ’90 to run the THC hotel (now Novotel), then Parkroyal (now Crowne Plaza) for Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation.
Peter was area manager for both hotels, and Mount Cook’s Hermitage, before leaving the industry in ’93.
He subsequently became a business consultant, implementing ‘total quality management’, before spending three years as the Chamber of Commerce’s executive officer.
He also had a stint on the Destination Queenstown board.
For almost 10 years, Peter also worked European winters as a restaurant maitre d’ in an Austrian hotel between multiple ski runs.
Skiing was his sporting passion — he met his Kiwi wife, Libby, while skiing in Zermatt, Switzerland — but he was also a keen hunter/hunting guide, tennis player, cyclist, dancer and fitness class devotee.
He was inducted into hunting by some Kiwi co-workers in the North Island, his beloved daughters Tessa and Kirsty say.
Tessa: ‘‘As a joke they told him, ‘before we can take you, you need to sprinkle cornflakes on the ground and practise walking on them without making a sound’.
‘‘He of course took this seriously, much to their delight.
‘‘He was such an enthusiastic, energetic guy who loved sharing a good story and making people laugh.
‘‘He was determined, adventurous and charismatic, he liked to be a star.
‘‘He loved goal-setting — ‘if you say you’re going to do something, do it’.’’
Kirsty says her dad was ‘‘such an amazing mentor for me’’.
‘‘He was just so positive but so annoying at the same time — I’d find these little notes with messages about time management, encouraging me to ‘keep moving’, and I’d just crumple them up and throw them at him.’’
The sisters say their dad also put up a terrific fight in the face of ongoing, recent health issues.
‘‘He loved us so much he didn’t want to leave us,’’ Kirsty says.
