When Amanda Decker-Penton ‘02 set out to pursue a nursing degree at StFX, she could hardly imagine how this path would transform her life and the place she called home.
Today, as the managing director of the Fogo Island Inn – a tourist destination honoured last year with the Michelin 3 keys designation recognizing extraordinary hotels – Amanda has taken her expertise in caring for people and parlayed it into building an innovative business on the northeastern coast of Newfoundland.
In December 2024, Amanda spoke with her alma mater about her journey from hospital to hospitality.
ONCE A NURSE, ALWAYS A NURSE
Raised on rural and remote Fogo Island, Amanda chose to attend StFX for its intimate environment and to be close to her cousins who were studying there. A resident of Mount Saint Bernard’s Gilmora Hall her first year, she fondly remembers the Sisters of Saint Martha who offered their hospitality. “They cared for you,” she reflects, also noting the care and support she received from StFX Nursing faculty.
In her fourth year, Amanda attended a nursing recruitment session held by StFX alumni working in northern Alberta, a region that had a shortage of health care professionals. Keen for an adventure, she accepted a float position that would involve working in four communities in the province’s Peace region.
The northernmost of these communities was Manning, a small town that served the area’s oil and farming industries and Indigenous population. She “fell in love” with the community, took a full-time position there, and started her family with her partner, a fellow Fogo Islander.
She would serve in a leadership role as a clinical coordinator at the Manning hospital for 15 years. “I loved my career in nursing,” she says, emphasizing that once you’re a nurse you’re always a nurse. “You just can’t go back from that. It’s not that kind of a career. You don’t just think, ‘I’m not a nurse anymore.'”
CHALLENGE AND OPPORTUNITY
When Amanda felt the tug to return East, it was at a time when economic challenges threatened the vitality of her home community. Although Fogo Island had an active fishery, it was a difficult industry to enter and young people were leaving to seek opportunities elsewhere. The population was declining and new ideas were needed to stimulate the local economy.
Zita Cobb, a Fogo Islander who had enjoyed a successful career in the tech business, had returned home and Amanda heard that she was starting a community development project.
The project assessed the community’s social, economic and cultural assets to identify a path to growing “another leg of the economy,” Amanda recalls. This exploration led to the establishment of an arts residency program and discussions about creating a hospitality-focused business.
Still in Alberta, she spoke with her parents nightly to keep abreast of the latest developments. When she heard about the idea of building a world-class inn, her first impression was: “Have we thought this through? Are people really going to come all the way out here, to stay on an island off an island on the northeast coast of Newfoundland?” Although incredulous, she was quickly falling in love with the idea.
Meanwhile, she was raising a family and feeling like something wasn’t quite right. Although she loved northern Alberta, she wanted her children to be close to their grandparents and grow up surrounded by the warmth of kin and culture.
A LEAP OF FAITH
Amanda soon found herself at a crossroads. She thought: “I cannot let a project like this happen in the place I love so much and not be part of it.” She imagined herself going back to Fogo Island retired someday, not having been part of all the good things happening there.
She spoke with her husband and they decided to make the move back home. She arranged a casual position for herself at the hospital on Fogo Island, he lined up work in construction and development, and they put their house up for sale.
Amanda called Zita and said, “Listen, I just want to contribute.” She admitted she didn’t know much about hospitality and hotels, but Zita was reassuring. “If you can look after people in a hospital, you can look after people in a hotel. It’s not that different,” said the businesswoman.
Resettled with her family on Fogo Island, Amanda rolled up her sleeves and got to work. Initially focused on training staff, she brought in people from the community and matched them with roles based on their skill sets and interests. She and her teammates taught them how to check guests in and out and perform all the functions of running a hospitality business.
Before long, the first guests began to arrive at the Fogo Island Inn. Amanda helped run the business while continuing to work at the hospital until her new role became too consuming. She decided, “I’m going to go head-first into this, because it needs attention and lots of care.”
A DIFFERENT KIND OF BUSINESS
Eleven years later, the fruits of that care are evident in the Fogo Island Inn’s success.
Far from a typical hotel, the 29-room property is “entangled with nature” and “rooted in community,” in Amanda's words. Owned by Shorefast, a social enterprise, the inn operates on a business model that prioritizes relationships – with guests, with the local community, and with all those involved in creating its unique guest experience.
“It’s not just balancing the books,” says Amanda. “It’s [spending] time with guests and with the people who work there. Just constantly developing and elevating every experience.”
The inn’s sourcing is “hyper local,” she explains. Eighty per cent of the food they serve comes from Fogo Island and they partner with fishing businesses and communities that have traditional trading relationships with Newfoundland and Labrador. Shorefast operates a constellation of mutually supporting enterprises, from an ice cream shop to a furniture workshop and a fish business.
To Amanda, social responsibility is not just an ethical imperative but a driver of success. When you do the right thing, she says, “the world recognizes you for it.”
And so it has. Last year, the Fogo Island Inn was one of only two Canadian properties to receive three Michelin keys. According to the Michelin Guide’s website, this designation is reserved for properties that offer “the ultimate in comfort and service, style and elegance.”
Businesses cannot apply for Michelin keys nor influence the process. “You don’t even know you’re in the running,” explains Amanda. Michelin sends representatives to visit properties as guests and evaluate their experiences, unbeknownst to the owners.
The accolades haven't stopped there. In December, Amanda and her colleagues learned that the inn had made the Condé Nast Traveller’s 2025 Gold List, the only Canadian property to get a shoutout in the luxury travel magazine.
LIFE LESSONS
Humble about her accomplishments, Amanda notes the significant influence of StFX on who she is and how she sees the world. “I think StFX grads are equipped differently. You feel there is a social responsibility; you don’t ever feel that you shouldn’t do the right thing.”
She talks about the “constant immersion in care” that defined her undergraduate experience, informed her nursing philosophy, and guides how she nurtures the many relationships that intersect at the Fogo Island Inn.
“It teaches you how to be, essentially, a good person,” she says of the Xaverian philosophy, symbolized by the X-Ring which she wears with pride.
From her life-changing decision 11 years ago, Amanda distills a key lesson: “It’s useful to not get hung up on what you said in your mind that your life’s going to be like. Life is constantly changing.”
She encourages others to think broadly about their education as “a setup for success in whatever our hearts and minds and souls and spirits” call us to do, even if the path isn’t obvious or conventional. The most important skill, she says, is adaptability.
Rooted in values while flexible in the face of change, Amanda and her community have built a thriving business guided by a philosophy of care. The ingredients to its success take on a distinctly Atlantic Canadian flavour, experienced by those lucky enough to find themselves where the ocean meets the rugged shores of Fogo Island.
