Biography of Ronald M. GilbertFor this past two years, Mr. Gilbert has served as the Director of Sales & Guest Services at the Columbia Club. During this period he sold over $3.0 Million in group sales, increased occupancy and ADR, added 7 new city-wide conventions and has reduced labor costs in Guest Services by 10% while increasing consumer rating scores. Prior to the Columbia Club he served as the Manager of Convention Housing and Travel Services Department of the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association (ICVA), Mr.Gilbert has been in a managerial role for the last 36 years. For the past twenty five of those years , Mr. Gilbert has served in many capacities in the Travel and Tourism industry. While at the ICVA, he has managed convention housing for over 300 events resulting in processing in excess of 400,000 reservations. During this period, Mr. Gilbert has been instrumental in ICVA implementing and creating their current housing system and processes.Additionally, he has been responsible for implementing an individual leisure sales program, which has generated over $7.8 million in gross hotel sales for 130,000 room nights over the last five year period. Prior to his experience at ICVA, Mr. Gilbert spent 15 years in the Travel & Tourism industry with Resort Condominiums International (RCI). While at RCI, he had assisted in thetraining, development and implementation of several reservation and quality control systems internationally to support 70 international operational offices. Mr. Gilbert’s Meeting Planning experience is extensive with directing and/or assisting in preparation of over 150 Travel/Tourism related conventions/conferences. Further he has spoken and/ormoderated at over 40 Travel/Tourism related industry conferences. Mr. Gilbert early in his career was one of the state of Indiana’s first graduates from Methodist Hospital’s/Butler University School of Paramedicine.Specialties: Operational Systems Interface in Maximizing Revenue Generation, Sales, Hotel/Resort Inventory Control, International Business, Contract Interpretation/Compliance, Meeting & Event Planning, General Management with 36 years of Experience, Emergency Medical and Paramedicine Support and Vehicle Fleet Management