Tom has dedicated his career in the hospitality industry, and even owned and operated a hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, for 3 years. His degree is in Hotel and Restaurant Management, and spent 10 years in hotel operations before deciding to leave operations and focus on telecommunications and technology applications in our industry.
Since that transition, he saw the need to be able to operate as a consulting firm rather than work for one vendor, and started Hospitality Consulting Services in 1992. He has focused the last 20 years consulting and advising hoteliers on the latest trends that would also improve the quality of services that they could offer their guests. This usually involved consolidation to improve efficiency and to lower costs or increase revenue potentials.
Hospitality Consulting Services has over 100,000 rooms worldwide as clients for various services. Tom has focused much of the company’s attention since 2001 on International Hotels, working with a variety of management companies, including most of the branded groups as well as independent properties.
In 2004, Tom was instrumental in getting HCS selected by The Leading Hotels of the World into their Leading Service Provider Network, as a resource for their member hotels in the areas of Technology and Telecommunications Consulting.
Tom joined Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) early on as a member and fully supports all of their initiatives and tries to help bring that message through to the hotel level and encourage both hoteliers and vendors that he works with to become involved with that organization. He has been asked to be a guest speaker worldwide at many hotel sponsored events on a variety of topics.
Today there is a new focus on reducing energy consumption and the costs associated with electric and gas sources for the industry. This is being done through audits and evaluations, and making recommendations for newer more efficient room controls and energy management systems, while giving a short period to realize a return on their investment (ROI).
Being instrumental in having HCS selected to Pilot the new Comcast Hospitality program nationwide, has provided many opportunities to help hotels to make decisions about the latest technology available in the area of IPTV. Tom was asked in 2011 to assist international leaders in this industry to help open up the market state of the art IPTV, HSIA, and Digital Signage products, which has been a great compliment to the portfolio of products and service HCS can offer to their hotel clients which can add a high element of guest service and create new sources of revenue.
Tom is originally from Illinois, but lived in Nigeria in West Africa for 5 years while his father worked for the state department on a project there, which also allowed Tom to attend a boarding school in Rome, Italy for the last two years of his high school education. Through Tom’s work in the hospitality consulting industry, it has been important to enjoy the many people, cultures, sites and experiences in many countries around the world. Tom enjoys sharing good food and good wine with others, and tries to live a healthy lifestyle, balanced with any outdoor sports activity, especially those involving water!
