Croatian-American buys hotel on coast so his 200 workers can holiday for free 

Jablanac (Photo credit: Si-Ziga/Public domain) and Darko Matt Sertić (Photo: Supplied)

Darko Matt Sertić, an American-Croatian businessman, has invested in a hotel so workers from his companies in Croatia can holiday on the coast for free. 

Sertić purchased Hotel Ablana in the small coastal settlement of Jablanac underneath the Velebit mountain two years ago solely for the purpose that his workers could holiday there for free, Tportal writes.

Hotel Ablana, which has 26 rooms, was built in the second half of the 1990s and worked until 2010, when it then became derelict. 

‘It was in a terrible state.. It was overgrown with weeds, and wild animals lived in it, and the rooms were toilets for all those who bathed on the nearby beach. But in America, they teach you that even that ‘yuck’ can be turned into something good. Everything can be fixed, except the location. When something is in an excellent location, then it makes sense for you to work hard,’ Sertić told Tportal.

Sertić’ renovated all the rooms, installed all new installations for water, electricity, gas and sewage, built a new kitchen and equipped it with state-of-the-art appliances. He is installing solar panels on the roof.

“Last year we already had our first guests, our employees, and our new season starts from Easter,’ says Sertić.

Darko Matt Sertić (Photo: Supplied)

Sertić moved from his native Sisak in to the USA in the mid-80s. He got a job in Silicon Valley and founded Applied Ceramics in 1994. 

Applied Ceramics is a fabricator of custom-made ceramics, quartz, silicon, and sapphire spare parts designed for the semiconductor, solar, fuel cell, oil drilling and nuclear industries. 

Applied Ceramics produces the ceramic components for the machines that produce microchips, and its clients are the world’s largest manufacturers, such as Intel, Samsung, Philips and Taiwan’s TSMC.

In 2008 he brought the company to his native Sisak and opened a plant there. Within the same industrial complex, he then opened Kul IN, a culinary institute that trains students from all corners of the globe.  

Sertić is also the founder of PISAK, a start up incubator helping local entrepreneurs and in 2018 he started the production of solar modules in the company Sunceco.

Darko Matt Sertić (Photo: Supplied)

In Croatia, Sertić employs around 200 people. With them in mind, but also in the desire to provide the participants of his culinary school with internships during the summer, he started looking for a hotel or resort by the sea.

“In recent years, we would arrange packages for our workers to spend the summer in Karlobag or Povljana on Pag. We would pay them, and they would arrange themselves when someone would go to sea. On the other hand, the culinary institute is growing more and more and people come to us from all over the world. We have had frequent inquiries about whether we organise something in the summer on the Adriatic. That’s why we decided to buy a building in order to be on our own,’ says Sertić, who lives today between Croatia and USA, before adding.

Jablanac (Photo: Si-Ziga/Public domain)

“It has nothing to do with socialism. When you do good to people, they return it tenfold. I think that the employer’s task is to organise a pleasant and harmonious life for all those involved in the company’s operations. Then your people will not go to Ireland or Germany. And in America we have a holiday home for our workers on Lake Tahoe, three hours from San Francisco. The worker is not paid just to suffer, but at work, where he spends perhaps more time than with his family, he must feel happy’, the American-Croatian entrepreneur concluded. 

You can read more about the Sertićs on this feature we done here.