CHAIRMAN & CEO

John F. Sweeney, RRP, ISHC, is Chairman and Founder of Global Resorts, Inc. an interna­tional leisure industry consulting firm located in Las Vegas , Nevada .

Sweeney, a thirty-four year veteran of the resort industry, has had a distinguished career encom­passing every phase of the business. Starting in recreational land development in 1967 with Boise Cascade, he worked in resort land sales and the camping industry prior to beginning his career in time­sharing in 1974.

As a pioneer in the timesharing and camp­ing industries, he has worked in marketing, sales, de­velopment, and resort management. He founded Global Resorts, Inc. in 1980 after assignments with leading resort development companies. Global offers a broad array of services that range from strategic and business planning through direct marketing and sales engagements. Global services hotel companies, financial institu­tions, pri­vate developers, ar­chitects, interior design­ers and attorneys. In various capaci­ties, Global has worked on 500 timeshare resorts in 40 states and 53 interna­tional projects in 32 countries, including assignments with 26 hotel brands worldwide.

In an interim assignment, Sweeney was the sen­ior executive of Acquisition, Design, De­velopment and Construction for Marriott's multi-project time­share resort system, Marriott Vacation Club Int'l. He also headed up RCI Consulting, Inc. the international consulting arm of the RCI, the world's largest timeshare exchange company in an interim assignment. RCI is a subsidiary of Cendant Corp.

He is recognized as a pioneer in the frac­tional interest industry – a companion product to timesharing. Starting with Tahoe Leisure Homes, the first high-end fractional project in the U.S. (1986) where he was a key executive.

He has worked on a variety of fractional projects with hotel brands such as Hyatt and Fairmont Hotels, as well as non-branded projects in Mexico , Hawaii , Colorado , Utah , and Florida . The range of these fractional activities include ski, golf, lake, and beach resorts.

Sweeney has been active in the America Resort Development Association (ARDA) since 1969, and has served as an Association Director, Co-Chairman of the Finance Com­mittee, and Chairman of the Eth­ics Committee. He is a Founding Fel­low of the ARDA Foun­dation Research Insti­tute, listed in Who's Who in Fi­nance and In­dustry , and has re­ceived many career ser­vice awards. He is a certified Reg­istered Resort Professional (RRP), a member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC). He is a founding mem­ber and current Chairman of the Na­tional Advisory Board for the UNLV Harrah College of Hotel Administration where he also teaches as adjunct faculty. Sweeney was named the 2003 Industry Leader of the Year by the Harrah College of Hotel Administration.

Prior to entering the industry, he was a re­gional sales manager for Hallmark Cards. Following his military service during the Korean War, he served with the National Se­curity Agency (NSA), the world­wide intelli­gence and cryptologic arm of the Depart­ment of Defense, covering activities in Europe, Africa, Japan , and Southeast Asia .