On The Road To Leading Hotels Conference – New York, NY April 6, 2008 

Right away in April I was back On The Road, this time just to New York City again, which is almost a day trip from Ft. Lauderdale thanks to all the non-stops.  This was to be a very interesting booking for me as I was a guest speaker at the Leading Hotels of the World’s call center director’s meeting.   Since Leading was previously a client I knew well that their portfolio includes some of the most famous and prestigious hotels in the world, so that alone was exciting for me when Jon Londeen, their Senior Vice President of Reservations, called me about this booking.  But I have to say the most exciting part was the diversity of regions, countries, and cultures to be represented at this meeting of about 15 call center managers plus the home office team.  When they were going through their introductions I felt like I was speaking at a United Nations meeting, as there were representatives from Russia, Italy, Paris, Germany, Singapore, Tokyo, Argentina, Brazil, and many others.  I have to say I was a little nervous that my message would resonate with so many cultures, but the audience was fantastic and very interactive which made my job a lot easier.  Here’s a picture with me with the group that day:  (Jon is to my immediate right.)  
 
                          

Having already reached Silver Medallion status on Delta in just three months I have to say it was really great to spend most of the rest of April at home and in the office.  This allowed me to spend extra quality time with Cathy and the kids, and to participate in several activities at their school.  Here’s a picture of me with my Julia at her Field Days, along with one of us with Adam at our school’s Dr. Seuss’ Birthday Celebration night, where I was a volunteer reader along with about 11 other dads: 

         

It also allowed me to train and develop our own team at KTN, especially as we had added several new clients and staff for our reservations mystery shopping services.  But after all those meetings our KTN staff did manage to find time for a little fun.  Colleen, our Director for ResSTAR Training, even got us free tickets to join her and Kris to see 38 Special and Charlie Daniels Band.  Although I’m not a huge fan of either band, Cathy loves 80’s music and also country and Southern Rock, so she was very happy that evening.  Here’s a picture of Colleen (far left), Cathy (center), and Kris from our ResSTAR team hamming it up on some swamp buggy we parked next to:

                         

We also had two two-day training sessions for our ResSTAR team, including Kathleen (Kat) Olarte, who has been with us since January, and also Marnid Rodriguez Ransom, who has been a client for years and has now joined our team.  Here’s a picture of Cathy with them at happy our after the training:  (Marnid is in the center and Kat is on the right.)