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HTNG bestows Annual Leadership Awards for contribution to the advancement of hotel technology
At the annual awards ceremony at its Members' Meeting and Conference in Dallas earlier this month, Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) recognized ten individuals for major contributions to advancing the state of hotel technology during 2008.

"Given all the bad news in the industry, attendees at this year's HTNG conference were delighted to see evidence of tremendous progress by HTNG's workgroups in addressing key industry interoperability challenges - and in particular, to see the number of actual field implementations of HTNG solutions and standards in hotels," said Douglas Rice, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of HTNG. "All of the credit, however, goes to the tireless efforts of our volunteers from the hotel, vendor, and consulting community, who devoted thousands of hours to the cause during the year. It is only fitting that our industry should recognize the most significant contributions by our volunteers - people who tried to make a difference, and succeeded."

Directors' Leadership Award
The top annual award, the HTNG Directors' Leadership Award, is bestowed annually by the HTNG board of directors. The HTNG board consists of Chief Information Officers and other top IT executives from 13 hotel companies from around the world, including most of the major brands. Each year, one or two HTNG members are recognized for their outstanding contributions to advancing the state of hospitality technology, typically through extensive and effective volunteer efforts within HTNG's focused workgroups.

For 2008, the Directors' Leadership Award was presented to Lew J. Harasymiw, Esq., Director of Interface Solutions at SynXis; and to Christopher M. Laffoon, Software Engineer at IBM Corporation.
A special five-year technical leadership award was also presented to Sophie Grigg, Chief Operating Officer of Lorica Solutions, in recognition of significant and ongoing contributions over the entire five-year period since the formation of HTNG's first workgroup in December, 2003.

HTNG also recognized the contributions of several other individuals to the success of HTNG's workgroups during 2008, including:
- John Bell, Enterprise Architect at Marriott International, for his project management skills as chair of the Reference Architecture team within the HTNG Architecture workgroup
- David Blancard, Architect, Distribution Technology at Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, as chair of the HTNG Property/Distribution Solution workgroup, for best overall progress by a workgroup during 2008
- Robin Coker, Software Engineer at Amadeus Hospitality, as the best overall team player for her contributions to the Property/Distribution Solution workgroup
- Bill Euler, President of Professional Accounting Systems, Inc. (PAS), for his project management of the Back Office interface team within the HTNG Property Web Services workgroup
- Monika Nerger, Vice President-The Americas for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, and Neil Schubert, Vice President-IT Strategy for Marriott International, as "Master Cat Herders" for their leadership of HTNG's In-Room Technology Workgroup, which now counts more than 150 senior-level participants from 69 companies; and
- Greg Pasetta, President and Chief Operating Officer at Tangerine Global, for the best creative contribution, in recognition of short-subject videos produced for the In-Room Technology workgroup. Tatiana Rokou - Tuesday, March 24, 2009