Choice Heads for the Border to Tap Taco Bell Exec.

<FONT SIZE="+3"><B>Choice Heads For The Border To Tap Taco Bell Exec

</B>On the verge of spinning off from parent Manor Care, Choice Hotels has imported a chief executive from Taco Bell. William Floyd, the fast-food chain's chief operating officer who previously held the same position at KFC, joined the 3,173- property hotel group earlier this month.

Teamed with Don Landry, Choice president and COO since January 1995, the two replace Gerald Petitt and Robert Hazard, who stepped down from day-to-day operations this year to serve on the board of directors. James MacCutcheon, CFO of Manor Care for the past nine years, is now Choice's EVP and CFO.

Floyd, a Wharton MBA, led the expansion of Taco Bell's kiosk-type Express units to double-digit increases over the past year and a half while also "developing a strategy to simplify operations and dramatically improve our speed of service, both at company-owned and franchised restaurants," said Taco Bell Corp. vice president Jonathan Blum.

"This was an opportunity that I know Bill just couldn't pass up," Blum said. "He's a great leader and a terrific guy, very driven, capable and personable."

Choice follows Holiday Inn in tapping a PepsiCo fast-food executive as its leader this year-although Holiday's Tim Lane later resigned (BTN, Oct. 14).

"In the past, people like Floyd and Lane would not have been interested in joining the lodging industry," said Bjorn Hanson, hospitality industry chairman for Coopers & Lybrand and newly appointed chair for the New York University center for hospitality, tourism & travel administration. "It was viewed as not being as exciting and as important as it is now. This shows that the hotel industry has graduated to a whole new level of prestige." The fast-food recruitments "shouldn't be taken as an insult to those in the lodging industry," Hanson added, "because we have a smaller pool of people with public-company experience."

For the franchised hotel chains, "it's not as important that the chief executive be brought up in the hotel business," said Scott Brush, president of Brush & Co., Miami. "Once you get to that level, it's a franchise business. And the fast-food chains have gotten better than the hotel companies at taking care of that market.