If you can sweet talk your way on to the Jet Set Sports VIP list (dream on), you’ll experience the Salt Lake City Winter Games in ultra-elegant style.

If you can wind up on the corporate payroll, so much the better.

Calgary lawyer Brian Rogers is twice blessed. He gets it both ways.

Jet Set Sports is a travel brokerage for A-listed big spenders, based in Far Hills, N.J. It’s also the 2002 Olympic sponsor for corporate hospitality management. And since the company first hired him 13 years ago, Jet Set has retained Rogers as its Olympic advance man.

David Lazarowych, Business Edge
Brian Rogers helps work out the details for VIPs travelling to Olympic events.

Every two years, his job is to sort out complex accommodation and transportation issues on behalf of his client, prior to both Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

How does a mild-mannered, down-to-earth Canadian QC out of the University of Alberta law school wind up lassoing one of the world’s premier hospitality consultants as a major client?

No mystery. Rogers, then a partner of ex-Sen. Ron Ghitter, merely answered his phone in mid-1986, and agreed to an evening meeting.

That led to what Rogers believed was a one-time assignment – to negotiate and close accommodation, dining and transportation agreements with local industry reps.

And to ensure that Jet Set’s client list of visiting VIPs would be suitably fussed over throughout the Calgary Winter Games of ’88.

When the task was fulfilled to the satisfaction of all, Rogers fielded a subsequent call, and heard the same voice.

“They wanted to know how quickly I could get myself to Seoul (i.e. for the Summer Games). I think they just forgot to fire me,” winked Rogers, now a senior partner in Rogers & Co.

Since then, the soft-spoken specialist in commercial and land-development law has performed similar tasks leading up to Winter/Summer Olympics in Albertville, Lillehammer, Salt Lake City, Barcelona, Atlanta and Athens (2004).

Here’s how it normally works. Three years in advance, Rogers establishes his initial beachhead in the Olympic city. First priority: retain a lawyer familiar with the ropes of the local jurisdiction.

From there, it’s a matter of sitting in on construction management agreements and negotiating airtight deals with agents for some of the world’s most posh hotels, and most estimable eateries.

Rogers must make sure no nasty surprises are sprung on Jet Set’s imported horde of pampered jetsetters, once the Games begin.

For Salt Lake City, Jet Set is bringing in several hundred dignitaries. They include corporate high-fliers, as well as the brass from a dozen national Olympic committees.

As a sponsor, Jet Set Sports commands an inventory of events tickets second only to the host organizing committee.

And it simply wouldn’t do to have the global elite turfed from their beds at midnight because, say, a bailiff was nailing a foreclosure notice to the door of their grand hotel.

It’s Rogers’ job to make sure such hypothetical glitches don’t occur.

That means scrutinizing every particularity, every bylaw, every zoning issue; in short, foreseeing every potential screw-up which might toss a monkey wrench into the works.

The job’s not done until each of Jet Set’s guests has access and suitable transportation to every Olympic venue, nor until each contract is signed, and tucked within Rogers’ briefcase.

Not surprisingly, some deals are more complex than others.

Prior to the Norway games, for example, Rogers found himself hung up in lengthy negotiations with civic officials, who fretted over a variety of environmental issues.

“For our clients’ accommodation, they actually brought in cruise ship containers of rooms, stacked around a central hall,” Rogers grinned.

There have been arduous meetings, stressful negotiations, and even a few laughs along the way.

He chuckled to recall a particular set of discussions, led by Rogers on behalf of the Polish Olympic Committee, a Jet Set customer. This was in Seoul, 1988.

Afterwards, a Korean delegate placed a friendly arm around the Calgarian’s shoulder. “He said: ‘For a Polish gentleman, you speak excellent English,’ ” Rogers laughed.

“I couldn’t help thinking: Here I am, a Canadian working for Americans in Korea on behalf of a Polish contingent, getting congratulated on my English.”

At each successive Olympics, security measures have tightened immeasurably since those Calgary Games of remote memory.

In Salt Lake, not even Jet Set’s A-listed dignitaries will be able to avoid lengthy, often tedious queues at the gate of every venue.

Rogers is good. But he’s not THAT good.