Reunion Friendly Network
Bringing Volunteer Military Reunion Planners and Convention &
Visitors Bureaus, Hotels, and other reunion vendors together since 1991

President
JOAN SPIEWAK

TRN Founder, CEO, Editor TRNews
PAUL J SPIEWAK

Bio
Email
VP of Marketing
CHARLENE ADAMSON
Bio
Email
VP Sales
RON COHEN
Bio
Email

GALE HELSER

Bio


Accomplishments to Date

Establishment of "Reunion Friendly" SM as a TRN Service Mark, and establishment of TRN as the definitive source for reunion planners and for those seeking reunion business.

Training more than 8,000 reunion planners at more than 149 educational conferences and FAMs (by the end of 2005) conducted in cooperation with Convention & Visitors Bureaus, from California to Florida to Massachusetts. Additional conferences are scheduled through 2006. Every conference to date has generated business for the host and exhibitors. Many locations repeat the program regularly.

Training more than 1,500 hotel, CVB and Travel Agency sales personnel.

TRNEWS, a quarterly newsletter, started in 1992, is distributed free to volunteer planners and to TRN Member CVBs and hotels. This popular publication was changed to a full color magazine in 1998. In 1999, the first issue of the year was a special CVB Annual. The 8th Annual CVB Issue was distributed in January 2005 to the entire TRN planner database, which has grown from 600 in 1991 to more than 14,000 as of January 1, 2005.

The Summer Issue, 2005, will be the 14th edition of TRN's Annual Directory of
"Reunion Friendly" SM Properties & Locations.

TRN Membership for hotels and CVBs was initiated at the end of 1997, and now includes private web sites (attached to TRN's Web Site) plus discounts at Conference exhibits, free matching advertorials with advertisements in TRNews, and other special member pricing.

Frequent and extensive publicity in trade publications, newspapers, radio and television.

Numerous speaking engagements at trade shows and conferences, including 4 times at HSMAI's annual Affordable Meetings Conference.

Creation and publication of TRNEWS Update, a bi-monthly newsletter specifically for TRN Member Hotels, CVBs and vendors.

Publication of the results of three statistical analyses, based on planner supplied information of more than 15,000 reunions, the first of its type for the military reunion market, in 1997, 2001 and 2004. Results and interpretations are published in TRNEWS Update.




TRN Founder, CEO, Editor TRNews
PAUL J SPIEWAK

Paul has been a professional communicator most of his life. An active Toastmaster since 1991, he served six terms as Education VP and two terms as President of his local club, as an Area 23 Governor in 1998-1999, and was the Broward/Bahamas Division Governor in 1999-2000.

Starting in 1958, his professional communication experience was mostly between business people and the then new machines called computers. As a systems analyst, programmer and consultant he listened to the needs of business people and communicated those needs into workable computer systems. He pioneered, and is noted, particularly for his systems work in sales forecasting and inventory control and for legal accounting applications. He retired from this field in 1991. After 1 day of retirement. he began a new career by establishing THE Reunion Network, Inc., a communications organization for Military Reunion Planners. The company publishes TRNews, a quarterly-color magazine, for more than 14,000 military reunion planners and TRNews Update, a bi-monthly newsletter for 5,500 hotels and Convention & Visitors Bureaus in its network. Paul is the Chief Executive Officer and Editor of the magazine and newsletter. The company also conducts fifteen training conferences each year, combined with FAMiliarization tours, throughout the country. A typical conference lasts 3-4 days, during which time, Paul, Charlene and Harold Wilson make presentations spanning the range of reunion activities.

Paul is a leader in many organizations including: Life member of the United States Power Squadrons and a Past Commander of the Miami Beach Power Squadron, Past Master of his Masonic Lodge, and a Past President of the South Florida Navigators Club. Due to physical limitations, he has given up water skiing, sailing, acrobatic flying and roller blading, but he is an active Master Scuba Diver and has won many prizes for his underwater photography. Photography, he notes, is just another form of communication.


Vice President Sales
RON COHEN

Ron Cohen affiliated with The Reunion Network in March 2001, having spent 17 years in the hospitality industry. He managed a number of hotels in southeastern Connecticut and served in a sales capacity as well, earning a certificate as a Certified Hotel Sales Executive.

Prior to 1985, Ron had a distinguished career in the publishing industry. He was the New England book sales representative for New American Library for 5 years. Subsequently, he entered into newspaper circulation and distribution, working for such prestigious publications as The New York Herald Tribune and Dow Jones, Inc., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Barron's and The National Observer. Later, he became VP and General Manger of the Holyoke News Company, a wholesale distributor of books, magazines and newspapers in western Massachusetts.

Ron's military career spans some 18 years (active and Reserve) with all of his assignments as the administrative and personnel officer (S-1) for Army battalions/groups. He retired April 1974 as a major.

He served with distinction as a Board member of the South East Connecticut Tourism District for 17 years, holding the position as vice chairman for 2 years. He was a founding member of Mystic Coast & Country and was a representative on the Governor's Tourism Commission. Ron participated in several sales and marketing missions with and for the State of Connecticut.
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VP of Marketing
CHARLENE ADAMSON

With twenty-five years in the hospitality industry, Charlene joined THE Reunion Network in March 2004. A native Tennessean, Charlene has nearly twenty years in the hotel industry both in the United States and internationally. Since 1999 she has worked for the Chattanooga Convention and Visitors Bureau, primarily as Military Reunion Sales Manager focusing on increasing successful military reunions for the Chattanooga area, a great part of which she attributes to working with THE Reunion Network.

As owner of her hospitality consulting business, WLP, Inc. she has been a public speaker and seminar lecturer for civic organizations, tourism councils, and for the Appalachian Development Center for Women at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky.

She has served on the State Board of Directors for the Kentucky Hotel/Motel Association, Greater Cincinnati Convention and Visitors Bureau, Maysville Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, The Dance Theatre Workshop of Chattanooga, and numerous local organizations in areas where she has worked, as well as Director for the Chattanooga Hotel/Motel Association. She brings to The Reunion Network a broad scope of industry knowledge and experience and is looking forward to this new phase of her career.


Presenting .......... Gale Helser

Gale Helser originally hails from Wisconsin, graduating from Beloit Memorial High School. After a tour in Vietnam, he came back to Wisconsin, graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater.

His experience includes many years in the printing industry, both owning and managing various printing operations. Gale began selling fine paper and paper products to printers and government-related printing operations in the tri-state area and retired from Georgia-Pacific in 2005 after twenty years with that company.

Gale has planned and taken friends to various vacation locations, including Washington, D.C. even before the Vietnam Wall was built. As a direct result of this experience Gale became a meeting planner nearly ten years ago and began providing vacation tours for the veterans in the southern Wisconsin area. In addition to other meetings, Gale is also the reunion planner for the 39th Engineers.

He is a Life Member of the VFW and the American Legion. He maintains memberships in Viet Now, Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and various veteran-related organizations.

He brings his expertise in military reunion planning to the TRN ConFAMs, as well as his experience as a sales presenter in his former occupation.

Gale now resides in Rio Hondo, Texas with his wife, Diane.



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