Danny Hood To Retire From WorldTravel BTI

Danny Hood will retire as president of WorldTravel BTI as of Jan. 1, 2006, and become an independent contractor with a contract to serve the company's advisory board through 2007, the company announced today.

The change is not abrupt, as Hood has slowly turned over his responsibilities to other senior WorldTravel executives throughout the year, during which Hood worked on a part-time schedule. Mary Ellen George, executive vice president of sales and marketing, who already had taken on many of Hood's sales and marketing responsibilities, will take full responsibility for that area. CEO Mike Buckman and COO John Snyder will take on Hood's other customer-facing roles, which included managing relationships with approximately 25 clients.

George, who has worked with Hood for 20 of his 26 years in the business travel industry, will take on roughly 50 percent of his responsibilities. Hood hired George as a sales executive at American Express in Dallas in 1985 and when he left for WorldTravel in 1992, George followed. "I call her one of the 'magnificent seven' who followed me here to WorldTravel," Hood said. "When I came here, I tried to bring the people I started developing [at American Express], and she really matured at WorldTravel."