Daniel Sullivan, Jr. ‘20

Chief Executive Officer
Collette

AWARD PROFILE

Courageous Thinking and Action
When Dan Sullivan walked through the doors of Collette in 1973, he was the global tour operator’s seventh employee. The Rhode Island-based company back then only offered regional coach tours, and for Dan, beginning his career there felt like coming home. His father had bought the company when he was just 12 years old and he’d helped out from day one. Dan learned from his father and still says that working alongside him – sharing his passion for travel was a highlight of his life and shaped the business as it is today. Dan learned from his father that if you have the ability to give back, you should never waste it. Serving the local community is part of the company’s culture as employees are allowed 4 paid volunteer hours each month. Thousands of hours are spent each year with employees mentoring youth, serving meals and making an impact in meaningful ways.

Vision & Innovation
The Collette headquarters is housed in a building along the Blackstone River, just upstream from where the American Industrial Revolution began. It is a fitting location for a company dedicated to innovation. Dan has nearly 50 years in the travel industry and was a driving force in taking Collette from a regional tour operator to a global company and industry leader. He manages the corporate team and provides the strategic vision for the company, and he still remains active in every aspect of the business, including tour guiding, product development, sales, and marketing. He built the business by innovating product, the customer experience, and doing things that no one else was doing. He created an outside sales force to connect with travel agents and group travel leaders throughout the US. He created a travel waiver that is heralded as the best in the industry, offering guests a full money-back refund for cancelation for any reason. During the COVID crisis, Collette issued over $135 million dollars when so many operators merely gave vouchers. As travelers changed and evolved and the industry changed, he pushed for product innovation which led to the launch of a small group tour line, faith tours, river tours, signature tours and more. Collette is the oldest tour operator in the world – 103 years in business – and that comes down to leading with heart and always innovating.

Inspiring Leadership
Dan leads with passion. He looks up to legends like Bruce Springsteen, who revere grit and hard work, qualities that Dan’s father also possessed and passed down to him. As he guided the company into the modern day, he’s always urged employees to volunteer their time, to embrace opportunities for professional growth – to be the best versions of themselves. The company still has the same kind of entrepreneurial spirit of its earliest days. Employees wear many hats and Dan himself will still be on the phones with partners, customers and on the road with sales representatives to meet with agencies. While he relishes being at the helm and guiding the company into the future, he looks to the strong leadership team that he built around him and believes in the power of a team. He mentors employees and creates the kind of culture in which leadership is tied up in sweat and hard work, in which all employees add value, in which the values at the very core of the business continue to drive its mission.

Community Mindedness
Under Dan’s leadership, Collette actively supports, through volunteering and grants, the local communities as well as children around the globe. Giving back is who Dan is and what he has always done. He is a member of the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA) and the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP). He chairs the Collette Foundation board, Collette’s global not-for-profit aimed at giving children in our global communities opportunities to thrive through hunger and education initiatives. He sits on the Charitable Foundation board for Bristol County Savings Bank; is the former Chairman for Tourism Cares; serves as Co-Chairman of the Pawtucket Foundation, an organization committed to the continued economic development of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Collette’s home city; and served on the Fairfield University Centre for Faith and Public Life board since 2005. He was inducted into the Tourism Hall of Fame for his contributions to the community, through philanthropic endeavors and significant contributions to the advancement of responsible tourism. 

JA Mission Moment
“See a problem and become part of the solution,” Dan says to his team all the time. When Dan visited Peru in 2006, he met children from a little village near Cuzco who were malnourished, living on a diet made up mostly of potatoes. He returned home and instantly began to game plan how to help those children. In the Rhode Island community and beyond, Collette has given its resources – from grants to volunteers’ hours – to help youth learn to read, have the tools they need for success, have food security and access to an education. That is the cornerstone of the JA mission and one that Collette completely embraces – one that Dan has instilled into its very core. That work in the local community spurred an idea to help children everywhere, and the Collette Foundation launched less than a year later. Like JA, Collette believes in giving our youth the access and resources they need to be their best possible selves.”