About the Speakers

Amanda Singer is a 21 year veteran of the hospitality industry.  She started her career in hotel operations, working her way through college while earning an Elementary Education degree at the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh.  After realizing that she loved the hotel industry more than the public school system, she moved to Minneapolis taking on a variety of hotel management positions within the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express brands.

In 2000, she entered a new chapter in her career by combining her Education degree with her practical hotel operations experience when she accepted a position within the Talent Development & Learning organization at IHG - InterContinental Hotels Group in Atlanta.

Throughout her tenure at IHG, she has taught thousands of hotel General Managers about the Company and their Brand's cultures, designed and implemented service culture training workshops for Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites, leadership and orientation programs for General Managers of the Holiday Inn Family of Brands, and many other service, quality and revenue-related workshops for all seven of IHG's brands.  In Amanda's spare time, she enjoys spending time with her dogs and cat, Maggie, Tyler & Pumpkin; cooking and traveling.

Mini-Description:

Customer-focused company culture a mystery?  It's only rocket science if that's your target customer!

Learn 4 key steps to creating and sustaining a customer-focused culture.

Dr. William C. Norman is an Associate Professor in Clemson University's Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management (PRTM).  Since joining the PRTM faculty in 1995, his research has focused on community tourism development, leisure travel decision making, tourism marketing and special interest tourism (i.e., agritourism, sport tourism, culinary tourism, and nature-based tourism).  Dr. Norman works with PRTM graduate students in identifying, developing and conducting theoretically-based, leisure travel research that assists tourism and recreation leaders.  Dr. Norman has a Ph.D. in Recreation, Park and Leisure Studies from the University of Minnesota, a M.S. in Park and Recreation Resources from Michigan State University, and a B.S. in Recreation Resource Management from the University of Minnesota.