Why Don Gleason

Inspirational Keynote Speaker

.Don Gleason has an extensive background in strategic planning, sales management, marketing, and customer experience. His consulting practice has included resorts and attractions, non-profits, and the travel industry (receptive, wholesale, retail) insurance groups, multifamily and single-family housing. He served as Vice President of travel, for AAA Arizona and managed all travel operations for the club. As a consultant for the past 17 years, Don has been helping businesses launch, turn around, or achieve exponential growth. As a hands-on executive, he works with the CEO and management team along a critical path that focuses on launching projects and improving cash through high accountability, metrics, and the disciplines of execution. He developed the marketing, sales, and brand strategy for new restaurant concepts as well as a 500-room, indoor Water Park Resort for Great Northern Resorts.  Projects include implementing sales and service delivery for the USA, Caribbean, and worldwide destinations for Virgin Holidays, Tropic Star Lodge in Panama, Delaware North Corporation, The Marley Spa Resort in Nassau, and many other consulting projects in travel, tourism, hospitality, construction, manufacturing, trucking, security, architecture, radiology and more. He wrote all the course curriculum for a B.S. degree in Hospitality and currently serves as an adjunct professor at Belhaven University.

With 25 years of experience in entrepreneurial business startups, Don has covered a wide range of disciplines.  As Chief Operating Officer for Radixx International (an airline and resort reservations systems company), he was involved in cutting-edge reservation technology, project planning, sales, and client management. Radixx hosts over 30 small to medium airlines worldwide. Before this, he was President of Universal Studios Vacations, where his re-branding, strategic alliances, and marketing programs helped achieve a strong profitability turnaround in 18 months. Universal Studios Vacations was part of the launch of the $2.4 billion expansion of Islands of Adventure, CityWalk, and the new Universal Loews Hotels.

Don was also Director of International Sales and Marketing for Disney, opening sales offices in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Canada to drive business to the U.S. theme parks, hotels, and the Disney Cruise line.  His teams implemented strategies to sell the 22,000-nightly resort room inventory with associated ticket media to multiple market segments. He has personally developed and overseen several large national product and service rollouts and has provided consulting services in the areas of sales and marketing, sales management, product development, strategic planning, brand creation and management, Tourism, and resort development. His first startup began at the age of 23 when he started a travel agency that grew into a chain of agencies in Mississippi and Louisiana.

He holds an MBA from Belhaven University and a B.A. from Louisiana State University and served on the Board of Trustees for Belhaven University. He was named the Belhaven University “Alumni of the Year” for 2004 for the Orlando MBA program. He currently serves on the board of Young Life, SW Orlando. He resides in Windermere, FL,.