Illinois
- The Affinia Chicago named Roderick A. Jao sales and marketing director. Jao brings 15 years of experience to the hotel and will play a key role in expanding the hotel’s sales and marketing teams. In his new position, Jao’s responsibilities will be to sustain and maintain opening sales, catering business and marketing operations for the hotel. Before joining the Affinia Chicago, Jao was the associate director of sales at The James hotel in Chicago, where he was accountable for the management of opening sales and catering. Prior to joining The James, Jao held various director positions within other Chicago-based hotels, including The Sutton Place and The Sheraton Hotel and Towers, where he oversaw and led teams in sales, catering, reservations and banquets… Charles Reece was appointed general manager for the Eaglewood Resort & Spa of Itasca, near Chicago. Reece was previously vice president of hotel operations at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut. He previously held senior management positions with the Hilton Harrisburg [Pa.], where he served as assistant general manager; the Hershey Philadelphia Hotel, where he was resident manager; and Vista International Hotels in Kansas City and New York.... Sara Turkowski was named manager of convention sales for the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau (CCTB). Turkowski will focus her efforts on securing corporate and association business in Chicago that meets during shoulder season and specific need periods within the next three years, requiring less than 750 room nights on peak. Most recently, Turkowski was a sales manager at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, responsible for the International and SMERF markets. Prior to 2006, she was a sales manager at the Hyatt Lodge McDonald Campus, working with the primary/specialty market.
Michigan
- The Grand Rapids/Kent County CVB appointed Doug Small president and CEO. Small will be in charge of increasing travel and tourism to Michigan’s west coast. Small was most recently senior vice president for the Denver Metro CVB, where he focused largely on convention sales and marketing. Prior to joining the Denver Metro CVB, Small was president of the Syracuse CVB in Upstate New York and has also held positions in sales and marketing for the Palm Springs Desert Resorts Convention and Visitors Authority in Palm Springs, Calif., as well as the Dayton CVB in Dayton, Ohio… Tom Conlin, founder of Ann Arbor-based Conlin Travel, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the American Society of Travel Agent’s (ASTA) annual meeting held in Orlando. He founded Conlin Travel in 1959, and since then he has gone on to purchase other agencies and expand his business many times over, opening Conlin Enrichment Tours, for alumni and specialty groups; Conlin Travel in San Francisco, a corporate travel agency; Conlin Groups & Meetings; Conlin Consulting, a technology integration firm; and Crossing Boundaries, a joint ownership that offers full-service incentive travel management. In 1998, he established the Great Lakes Cruise Co., which now represents all cruise lines on the Great Lakes and brought back passenger cruise ships to the Great Lakes by chartering two European ships, MV Columbus and Le Levant, for four consecutive years. Outside of his businesses, Conlin has been active in the industry overall, and was a past president of ASTA’s Michigan Chapter, in addition to serving on several national ASTA committees, among them the Committee on Consumer Travel Awareness.