The Business Travel News Hall Of Fame: Top of the Top 25s

By BTN / May 16, 1999

The Business Travel News Hall Of Fame: Top of the Top 25s

The following lineup appeared in our annual selection of the 25 most influential executives in the business travel industry four times or more.<hr><ul><li>Jack Alexander<li>Ron Allen<li>Juergen Bartels<li>Robert Crandall<li>John Davis III<li>Gerald Greenwald<li>Darryl Hartley-Leonard<li>Herb Kelleher<li>Frank Lorenzo<li>Frank Olson<li>David Paresky<li>Hal Rosenbluth <li>Travis Tanner<li>Jonathan Tisch<li>Joseph Vittoria<li>Michael Whitesage<li>Stephen Wolf</ul><hr>

<a name="jack">Jack Alexander

Closing 1998 with a merger that made WorldTravel Partners-BTI Americas the third largest agency in the nation is only the latest reason that CEO Jack Alexander has been named to the top 25 list five times. Since co-founding WTP in 1987, Alexander has been a force to be reckoned with in the travel industry. In 1993 he formed an equity partnership with Travel Technologies Group to provide state-of-the-art technology solutions, and in 1994 he launched a joint venture with former Hoechst Celanese Corp. employees and entered into a profit-sharing deal with Southland Corp. WTP in 1995 launched a subsidiary to provide housing reservation services to CVBs, and captured the travel and lodging contract for the Atlanta Olympic games. Leveraging that software and group travel expertise led to several large account wins for the agency, including the fulfillment contract for Microsoft's Expedia site.

<a name="ron">Ron Allen

Although United Airlines has since taken the commission-cutting torch, Delta Air Lines' former chairman and CEO Ron Allen is responsible for what travel industry insiders called the biggest change in the business since deregulation: the 1995 cap on domestic agency commissions, instituted in the name of a well-known cost-cutting effort called Leadership 7.5. Even before that, Delta demonstrated to its competitors that dropping distribution costs wouldn't kill them by slicing international full-fare commissions from 10 to 8 percent. These moves turned around Delta's image and, coupled with its acquisition of much of PanAm, cemented the airline as one of the world's megas.

<a name="jb">Juergen Bartels

No matter which hotel chain Juergen Bartels has run over the past decade, he's come in like a whirlwind to grow the brand. In the hotel boom days in the 1980s, Bartels presided over Radisson's incredible growth, from 134 properties in 1985 to nearly 300 in 1989, as president of the Carlson Hospitality Group. Today, he is expanding the Starwood empire of more than 700 properties by adding two more hotels a week to the Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis Luxury Collection, Four Points, Caesars and W Hotels portfolios. On a scale that has surprised even Bartels himself, his strategy has remained constant: motivate employees, satisfy guests and provided value to shareholders. JB, as he's called by almost everyone around him, was named to the Top 25 list in 1985 and 1986 while at Carlson, and again in 1995 and 1996 when tapped to invigorate the Westin brand.

<a name="crandall">Robert Crandall

As winner of the most BTN Top 25 Most Influential awards, 10-time repeater Robert Crandall is the undisputed most influential travel executive of the past 15 years. Under his leadership, American Airlines invented such landmark concepts as loyalty programs, computer reservations systems and yield management. It also started supersaver fares and pushed travel agencies toward service fees in 1988 by cutting overrides and incentives. Even Crandall's missteps were a lesson to the industry: how to overhub and how to disturb everyone from corporate buyers to pilots. Crandall is famous for his aggressive, no-nonsense style--and for training the airline industry's best managers. Rumors of his retirement began 10 years before it happened last year. He now sits on the board of directors of American Express.

<a name="III">John Davis III

Over the past decade, John Davis III, president and CEO of Pegasus Systems Inc., has consistently shown how to transform a business using technology, a little luck and a great sense of humor. First appearing on the 1994 list, Davis transformed a company that was forged by competing hotel chains to lower and track their booking expenses into a provider of e-commerce solutions. Pegasus today sells hotel booking through its Travelweb.com site, commission processing to hotels and travel agencies, and, most recently, database marketing and consulting services. An initial public offering in 1997 raised $40.5 million, a secondary offering in 1998 raised $4.2 million and yet another offering this month garnered $73.3 million more. Today, Pegasus has a market capitalization in excess of $480 million.

<a name="gg">Gerald Greenwald

An early example of the airline industry's newfound willingness to hire leaders from other industries, Gerald Greenwald's detachment from some of travel's most entrenched ideas was evident in some of his most powerful decisions. The biggest of those for buyers, of course, were the commission cuts he initiated, to 8 percent, for domestic travel in 1997 and for international travel in 1998. But Greenwald also led an airline that on his watch helped pioneer such industry trends as electronic ticketing, online booking, low-cost airlines-within-airlines and alliances.

<a name="dhl">Darryl Hartley-Leonard

Former Hyatt Hotels president and CEO Darryl Hartley-Leonard--who began his hotel career as a front desk clerk in Los Angeles in 1964--made his mark on the industry as an aggressive competitor who built and acquired hotels in the midst of the late '80s overbuilding, pioneered technological development--focused particularly on the checkin process, the reservation system and the standardized property management system--and railed against the overly generous frequent guest programs of competitors. Hartley-Leonard, who chaired the U.S. Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism Advisory Board and the Travel and Tourism Government Affairs Council, ultimately became the founding chairman of the group of CEOs and senior travel industry executives known as the Travel Business Roundtable as he sought to give the industry a cohesive voice that federal lawmakers could hear.

<a name="herb">Herb Kelleher

A Wall Street analyst once described the U.S. airfare structure this way: "Fares are high where Southwest isn't and low where it is." Still mostly true for business travelers, this axiom isn't quite right in some markets where other airlines, namely Delta, United and US Airways, have announced their own defensive versions of Southwest. If imitation is the best form of flattery, Herb Kelleher has to be blushing. Simply put, no human being has ever done more to make air travel affordable than Herb Kelleher.

<a name="frank">Frank Lorenzo

From turning around Continental Airlines after its first bankruptcy filing in 1983, to indirectly creating the Pan Am-later Delta-Shuttle and pushing TWA into Carl Ichan's hands, to creating what became the world's largest airline via the holding company structure of Texas Air Corp., Frank Lorenzo's contribution to the business travel industry is everlasting. Nowhere is his influence felt more heavily than in his nearly single-handed expansion of distrust for airline management among labor unions. Even this month, a pilots' union president said his group views the world through the "lens of Lorenzo."

<a name="fo">Frank Olson

For having led the car rental industry to new heights, and hikes, with his innovative and progressive ideas, Hertz Corp. chairman and CEO Frank Olson over the past 15 years has been more often recognized than not by BTN, with a nine-time repeat record. His influence on pricing policies and determining what services become industry standards was first noted in 1984, when he took the leadership role in seeking to restore corporate car rental pricing to profitable levels by instituting city surcharges and corporate base rates. His competitors quickly followed suit. Olson through the years also has acted as the industry conscience, with a call for the abolition of collision damage waivers. He threw Hertz's full weight behind cleaning up the industry's sales and advertising practices, resulting in a testament to his influence: the adoption of industry guidelines by the National Association of Attorneys General. And all the while Hertz, under Olson's tutelage, has maintained its strong number-one position.

<a name="dp">David Paresky

The travel industry's longtime resident intellectual, David Paresky is remembered best for his recognition of the need for size and training and technology investment in the evolving corporate travel marketplace, plus his ability to merge agencies and stay at the helm. Paresky's Crimson Travel Service Inc. and Heritage Travel Inc. in 1988 forged a partnership that leveraged Heritage's corporate travel expertise with Crimson's dominance of the Boston leisure market. By the time the two merged the next year, Paresky ran the combined company even though Crimson was the smaller player. By 1990, he orchestrated the merger of Crimson and Heritage into Thomas Cook, where he took on the roles of chairman, CEO and president of the third largest agency in the United States, with over $1 billion in air sales. In a career-gracing final coup in 1994, Paresky sold Thomas Cook to the biggest agency, American Express.

<a name="hal">Hal Rosenbluth 

Hal Rosenbluth over the past 15 years has gone from being executive vice president of a $200 million family business to president and CEO of a multinational mega-agency with over $2 billion in annual air sales. Many cite Rosenbluth as a technology leader for the development of the Dakoda and E-Res systems as well as a leader in state-of-the-art call center technology with the launch of the North Dakota reservation center in 1986. In the mid '80s, Rosenbluth also helped encourage the domestic consolidation trend with its win of the consolidation contract for the $80 million Dupont account. He also took the agency out of Woodside Management Systems Inc. consortium to develop his own domestic hotel program, launched the Vision accounting network, and added 600 employees and 40 new offices. The agency has worked hard under Rosenbluth's tutelage to live up to its global name, with international expansion efforts like the 1996 acquisition of the Hong Kong-based Hatro Hadse Travel.

<a name="tanner">Travis Tanner

Former Carlson Wagonlit Travel president and CEO Travis Tanner has made an indelible mark on the travel business, leading the industry in rethinking all aspects of travel management, from fee-based pricing to technology. The former president of Ask Mr. Foster left Carlson once, only to return in 1993. He was instrumental in the 1994 merger of Carlson Travel Network and Wagonlit Travel that created the second-largest travel agency in the nation, and in just a year added the Carlson name to more than 1,700 new offices in 125 countries. Tanner also led the push to travel management fees in 1994, moving the agency's top customers away from the rebate-check mindset. And it was Tanner who changed the mega-agency technology landscape by deciding to use third-party solutions instead of developing everything in house, using the TravelNet booking system and moving travel management tools onto corporate intranets.

<a name="jt">Jonathan Tisch

Jonathan Tisch, CEO and president of Loews Hotels, donned the mantle of leadership in the travel industry in the early 1990s when he led the successful fight to repeal an onerous New York City hotel tax of 5 percent that drove the total tax bite for the Big Apple to 21.25 percent. Correcting this disincentive to do business in New York was a public policy victory that symbolized how the industry should work together to advance public and private interests. In 1995, showing his commitment to lead the industry on a national level, Tisch co-chaired the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism Promotions Committee, focusing on marketing the U.S. as a destination, became vice chairman of the American Hotel and Motel Association, and took the lead on the annual International Hospitality Investment Conference and the chairmanship of the Travel Business Roundtable. As TBR chairman, he has made real progress in delivering the industry's message to those in the executive branch and in Congress.

<a name="jv">Joseph Vittoria

As chairman and CEO of Avis Rent A Car System Inc., Joseph Vittoria's pioneering drive toward technology continuously convinced other vendors to join the tech game and helped solidify Avis's position as the number-two car rental company. Under his leadership, Avis tackled the travel safety and security issue with the introduction in 1994 of the industry's first smart car. Equipped with two onboard technologies--the satellite-based Guidestar Navigation Information System and a panic button that summons police--the smart car tipped the technology iceberg and soon became standard in many major car rental markets. Vittoria also drove another influential move: providing up-to-the-minute flight information to airport renters by giving lot agents handheld computers.

<a name="white">Michael Whitesage

Prism Group founder Michael Whitesage has spent a decade on a mission to put usable travel data into the hands of corporate buyers. Nominated four times since debuting the Travel Manager's Workstation in 1991, Whitesage was among the first to recognize the pull of the power of numbers to travel managers. By the time he sold the Workstation to Sabre in 1996, it was the dominant information system of the industry, with 100 of the nation's biggest travel buyers, including six of the 10 largest agencies and 25 of the 100 largest accounts, as its customers.

<a name="wolf">Stephen Wolf

Stephen Wolf appears to be the airline industry's turnaround expert, particularly as one considers what he did with Republic Airlines and what he's doing with US Airways. At Republic, Wolf extracted labor concessions and restructured the route network to create what became, following a merger, Northwest's hub system of Detroit, Memphis and Minneapolis. At United, Wolf negotiated for Pan Am's London routes and led the airline up to its current ESOP structure. In what is perhaps his greatest airline transformation, Wolf has made US Airways one of the industry's most profitable carriers, grown its international operations, bought the Northeast shuttle, outsourced information technology to Sabre and expanded Metrojet, the low cost airline-within-an-airline.

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