American Leisure Reshapes Board, Breaks Ground on Resort

ORLANDO - American Leisure Holdings, an international travel services manager and travel destination development company, said it fortified its board of directors to help launch “aggressive” acquisitions of more travel distribution and management companies.
David Levine, former chairman and chief executive of ResortQuest International Inc., was named chairman-elect. Levine was with ResortQuest during an explosion of growth, market creation and branding in the vacation home sales and vacation home management industry, American Leisure said, adding that Levine would help fine-tune the AMLH business model and “guide the company through the rigors of public finance.”
Also named to the board is Thomas Cornish, president and chief executive of Seitlin Insurance Inc. of Miami, Fla. American Leisure pointed to Cornish’s finance, banking and corporate governance experience as leverage to help it access and evaluate public and private sources of debt and equity financing, and to prepare the company for its entry into those markets.
Also announced to the board is Carlos Fernandez, formerly an audit partner with KPMG in Madrid and Miami and, more recently, was managing director of the mergers and acquisitions group. Fernandez will help American Leisure structure strategic acquisitions and fulfill the responsibilities of public company financial reporting, the company said.
L. William Chiles, chairman of the board since July 2003, will remain on the board and lead its New Initiative committee. Chiles is also board chairman of Hickory Travel Systems Inc., a subsidiary of the company. Hickory is a consortium travel services provider whose members buy over $15 billion of travel sales.
Retiring from the AMLH Board is Gillian Wright, who has served since the company took form in a reverse merger three years ago. She gains the title of Director Emeritus of the Company.
The announcements were made with the groundbreaking of the American Leisure’s new luxury resort near Orlando. The resort is to be operated by the upscale hotel manager, Sonesta International Hotels Inc. of Boston. Known as Sonesta Orlando Resort at Tierra del Sol, it will have 972 vacation home resort units, 625 of which have been sold, totaling over $200 million.