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Allyson Kane
Allyson Kane has been writing since age 5 though her only published work is a story written in 1981 about a pink rabbit that wished he could fly. It was framed and hung in her grandmother's kitchen. Living in New England for long enough to be considered a Red Sox fan, Allyson is a Senior Marketing Project Manager in Starwood's Global Web Services department. She holds a Master's Degree in Integrated Marketing from Manhattanville College. Allyson is known and respected for her ability to Parallel Park and her addiction to Diet Coke.
Specialty: New England
See all of Allyson Kane’s 1 postsAndrew Huff
Andrew Huff is a writer and editor living in Chicago. He loves a good Indian mango, a peaty scotch and a juicy hamburger – although not usually all at the same time. When not at home, he's wishing he was in New Orleans.
Specialty: Food
Anne McManus
Anne McManus is a lawyer that works for the Department of Juvenile Justice in Sydney, Australia.
Specialty:
Candice Kraughto
Still planning her perfect overseas honeymoon, Candice frequently island hops with her husband among the Hawaiian archipelago she calls home. The director of public relations for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Hawaii, Candice considers herself blessed to enjoy romantic weekend getaways throughout the islands (Maui, Kauai, Big Island, Molokai and Lanai) many couples only dream of.
Whether she's singing karaoke in Korea, hiking to a Kurdish village in Turkey, shopping in Thailand, sipping oolong tea in Taiwan or just perusing a Hawaiian-Chinese history museum in Maui, Candice seeks out unique and culturally adventurous events and activities. She and her husband have already enjoyed several mini-honeymoons in New York, San Francisco and throughout the Hawaiian Islands, but plan to tango in Argentina on their next great escape.
Specialty: Hawaii, Romance/Adventure
Carly Eiseman
Left-handed at everything she does, writer/editor Carly Eiseman is known for packing heavy and regular suitcase jumping. With Venice, California as her home base, she hunts the globe in search of perfect espresso, spicy chocolate, colorful socks and unforgettable photos. Cultivating the world's first known collection of toothpaste from foreign countries, she currently brushes with Aronal from Germany and occasionally blogs about cool design objects at objetsmart.com.
Specialty: Design, Art
Celeste Sunderland
Infatuated with Campari, Bionade, and Earl Grey tea, Berlin based writer Celeste Sunderland bikes the city's streets in search of the best places to consume them. A Rhode Island native, she also really likes the beach, tiny museums, and open air markets.
Specialty: International/Events
Dana McMahan
Dana has fueled her passion for travel and food eating her way from Inverness to Istanbul, along the way enjoying culinary adventures like a cooking class in Florence, Italy, and a behind the scenes tour of a Paris boulangerie.
She has logged some four months of travel time in Europe in the last few years. She has stayed in youth hostels, guest houses, apartments, villas, pensions, and hotels with no-star through 5. She has traveled by low-cost air, business class air, free air, train, taxi, boat, ship, ferry, bus, subway, tram, cable car and rental car. She planned a trip to Italy once with only a week's notice and can file a police report in French.
Dana's an award-winning travel photographer and has written for International Travel News magazine. Dana shares her travel and culinary explorations on Airport.ca and Forks.ca, as well as arbitrary ramblings on www.travelingmcmahans.wordpress.com.
When she's not cooking, traveling or blogging, she teaches a class on European travel planning and works as a Web content developer. She most recently returned from a father/daughter motorcycle trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Specialty: SPG Member
Hanna Kim
Hanna is a California native gone New Yorker who has serendipitously fallen into the writer's chair. When she isn't obsessively reading one blog or another, she can be seen in her natural habitat- in a bar sipping a dry vodka martini
Specialty: Fashion
Jack Martin
Jack Martin recently retired with over 35 years in the commercial nuclear industry. He enjoys backpacking in Big Bend and the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas as a life-time Sierra Club member when he is not satisfying every whim of his new boss, Beth (his wife of over 34 years). He is the Vice President and principal consultant a small privately owned business that provides root cause analysis and management improvement analysis to businesses between hikes, cruises and completing the ever growing honey-do list.
Specialty: SPG Member
Jae Knowlton
Jae Knowlton is the Operations Manager for the Austin Customer Contact Center. He has been in the Starwood family since November 1993 when he began working with ITT Sheraton. Over the past 14 years, he has worked in Hotel Customer Service, SPG Member Services and spent four years as a Six Sigma Black Belt. In his current position, he is responsible for a growing team of 10 Sales Supervisors and 180 Reservation Sales Associates.
A native of Chicago, he used to play bass guitar in a band called Slack and was part of a dance troupe that opened for Roy Orbison at a honky-tonk bar in Ft. Worth.
Specialty: Family
Jaime Gottlieb
Jaime Gottlieb is currently the Manager of Online Communications for the Luxury Brands Group, where she proudly plays the role of resident wordsmith, grammar watchdog and comma commando. Jaime has been a writer/editor for the last seven years, building content and helping to expand small companies including her tenure as Web Producer/Editor/Event Coordinator for a social networking start-up and as Editor-in-Chief of online advertising publication, Adotas.
A Florida native, Jaime loves to travel, go river tubing and visit her family in Fort Lauderdale. She's also a self-proclaimed nacho enthusiast and actually had a nacho blog at one point.
Specialty: Luxury
Jan Roberts
Jan Roberts’ globe-trotting grandparents inspired her own wanderlust and she spent a lot of her early life in travel mode, exploring out of the way places before anyone had even heard of the term “adventure travel.” At 60 she’s still travelling, but these days her trips are mostly business-related. She’s a successful author and speaker and her hot topic “Healthy Parents = Healthy Babies” puts her in front of audiences around the world. Down-time between presentations means a hiking trail, a deserted beach or some fresh champagne powder.
Specialty: SPG Member
Jeremy McCarthy
Jeremy McCarthy is the Director of Spa Operations, Development and Marketing for Starwood Hotels and Resorts where he is responsible for the development of the Heavenly Spa by Westin brand for Westin Hotels.
In addition to overseeing spa operations at Starwood Hotels, McCarthy is also heavily involved with the International Spa Association, sitting on their Board of Directors as Vice Chairman. He writes regularly for “Pulse” and “Organic Spa” magazines and is the author of “Become a Spa Owner” published by Fabjob.com.
Specialty: Spa
Kate Schwartz Seamons
Kate Schwartz Seamons is a writer and editor who recently moved from Chicago to Knoxville, Tenn., where she is slowly and steadily falling for collard greens, exploring the Smokies, and learning how to operate a push-mower. She is a year-round lover of rosé, bicycling, and—you guessed it—travel.
Specialty: USA
Laura Rohrman
This Northern California native got the travel bug early -- when she moved to Paris, France and spent three months backpacking all over Europe while still only a teenager. This mountain-climbing, adventure-seeker is also an award-winning, produced playwright, actress and journalist. Laura’s favorite holidays include: the beaches of Maui, the rain forests of Domnica, dancing with Maya du Ballet in Bahia, Brazil (with her dance troupe) and rafting through the Grand Canyon.
Specialty: Adventure
Lucy Williams
Lucy Williams is an Orlando-based writer who plans to run a marathon on every continent.
As a writer for Starwood Vacation Ownership, Lucy Williams provides the inside scoop on vacation ownership properties, contests and notable offers. She brings the latest resort news and special messages from the Starwood Vacation Ownership Marketing team and Starwood Vacation Owners.
When she's not writing, Lucy makes the most of the year-round Florida sunshine. An avid runner and swimmer, she plans to complete the Kona Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii, and run a marathon in Greece, the birthplace of the marathon. After a long day on her feet, Lucy appreciates returning to a comfortable retreat where she can relax by the pool.
Specialty: Vacation Ownership
Mira Boykin
Mira Boykin is the Queen of the Vibe at aloft Chesapeake. For her, being the Queen of the Vibe is not just about planning a great gig, but more about creating, developing and delivering a space that is all at once beautiful, smart, cheerful, sophisticated and energetically alive. Prior to “work” at aloft Chesapeake, she studied English and Music at New York University, graduating with a B.A. in English in 2002. As an admitted wannabe media maven, Mira began her career in publishing, working in marketing and advertising at Conde Nast and at Parade Magazine. After leaving New York, she returned home to Norfolk, VA where she began working for Portfolio Weekly Magazine and skirt! Magazine. As a volunteer event coordinator for the Norfolk SPCA, she has charged her way into event planning and organizing or, as she might say, Fun-Fest Development. This talent she also brings to aloft Chesapeake where she infuses creativity, fun and spark into your stay.
Specialty: aloft
Niall Twamley
Niall Twamley is presently the Branded Experience Analyst in the Cork CCC and an employee of Starwood since December 2001. Beginning in reservations, he moved into Corporate Customer Services in 2003. With a degree in German and Economics, he works with a small, but tightly knit team spread between Cork, Ireland and Austin, Texas.
A member of the winning Irish "College Bowl" TV quiz tournament in 2001, he was also a member of his university's softball club.
Specialty: Ireland
Niklas Schlappkohl
Originally from Munich, Germany, Niklas completed degrees in linguistics in Germany and the US, plus a year abroad in China and studies in Spain. He moved to Paris where he obtained a Master's before beginning his career at Netscape Europe and then IBM France, before moving to Argentina and working at an Internet startup in Buenos Aires.
One year later, he began his first position in the Hospitality Industry at a luxury boutique hotel chain in Miami and the Caribbean, thus combining work and personal interests. Niklas now works as business lead for the non-English websites at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, where he is responsible for the development of strategy, and managing functionality and marketing.
Specialty: International Travel
Peter Foreman
A native of Australia’s Gold Coast, Peter Foreman studied Business Management in Hospitality and Catering before moving to Spain, where he worked at the 1992 World Expo in Seville. Following a six month touring holiday of Europe and the USA, Peter settled back to Australia where he worked at the Sheraton Mirage Port Douglas. He worked as Director of Sales & Marketing at Sheraton Langkawi Beach Resort in Malaysia before moving to Sheraton Haikou Resort in China. Following four years of island life in Malaysia and China, he has relocated in January 2009 to Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur.
Specialty: Asia
Peter Turco
Peter Turco is a writer, editor, and lately an aspiring drummer when he’s not working on the marketing team at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. He lives in Connecticut where he is owned by a smart-alecky Lab, Westin. (Yep, he named is dog Westin.)
Specialty: Asia
Rick Kolsky
Rick Kolsky, veteran road warrior, is a business school professor, management consultant, and die-hard youth basketball coach. Rick and his wife of 30 years, Anne Jacobson, spend their free time and spare change exploring our glorious planet, having visited 49 states and 6 continents. Highlights include an unplanned overnight hike in the wilderness of the Denali foothills, a six-day Kilimanjaro climb (and six-hour descent), a hailstorm while camping near Split, a waterlogged Bhutan mountain trek, three days hanging with a pride of 16 lions in the Savuti savannah, exchanging "monkey faces" with wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, NOT wearing a speedo or thong on Copacabana beach in Rio, sunrise at Macchu Pichu, an audience with the Singh Sahib in Amritsar, and a Saharan sandstorm in Morocco.
Specialty:
Robin Andrea Kohl
A native of Los Angeles...a former BH talent agent & current writer/ L.A. correspondent for the foreign press (France & Austria)...i am always in search of new locales, upscale hotels properties, museums, nightlife, fashion....anything of cultural or entertainment value....my friends KNOW I love my job, I love to travel, I love to discover and I love people!!!
Specialty: SPG Member
Sheila Clapkin
Sheila Clapkin is a teacher, author and artist that lives in Tarzana, California with her husband Skip. She loves to travel with a passion.
Specialty: SPG Member Corner
Stephen Chien
Stephen Chien is an itinerant traveler and occasional writer/blogger. He enjoys traveling the world in search of interesting cultures, tasty foods and beautiful landscapes. A native of California, he's also happy that he can find all three of those right at home in the San Francisco Bay area.
Specialty:
Steve McCall
Steve McCall is a native of Portland, Oregon. When the rain gets to be too much, he hits the road, preferably to someplace with good wine. His travels have taken him to over 25 countries - so far. His next destination: Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Specialty:
Tamara Palmer
Tamara Palmer is a San Francisco-based writer/editor who has contributed to the Associated Press, Wired, Village Voice Media and the Tribune Company. She blogs daily about food for SF Weekly and is proud to have authored "Country Fried Soul: Adventures in Dirty South Hip-Hop," the first book dedicated to Southern rap music.
Specialty:
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