Joel W. Hiser
Statement of Qualifications
Joel W. Hiser is a Principal with Horwath HTL and is an executive committee member of the Company. He is a 35-year veteran of the hospitality industry has served in executive management capacities with leading hotel and resort companies. Previously he served as Executive Manager Director for PKF Investments – Capital Markets Group, where he was responsible for overseeing hotel brokerage operations and expanding it into a national practice. At Richfield Hospitality Services/Regal Hotels International, he served as Senior Vice President – Corporate Finance, Acquisitions and Development and was an Executive Committee Member. This position also included direct oversight of the in-house legal department. During his tenure with Richfield, the Company was the largest third party hotel management company in the world with over 100 hotels under management and annual revenues exceeding $500 million. He was responsible for the asset management of a hotel and office real estate portfolio exceeding one billion in value, third party management contract development and negotiation and owner relations for more than 100 hotels. He was also responsible for Company M&A activity that resulted in the privatization of a public company as well as several hundred million dollars of hotel acquisition and financing, including the purchase of such well known hotel assets as the Millennium U.N. Plaza Hotel – New York, Biltmore Hotel and Office Tower – Los Angeles, Bostonian Hotel – Boston and the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel – Chicago.
Prior to Richfield, Mr. Hiser was an executive committee member and head of real estate for Hawaii based Outrigger Hotels and Resorts, the largest hotel company in Hawaii with 29 hotels with over 10,000 guestrooms. He was responsible for acquisitions, project development, management contact procurement, property acquisitions and development, asset management and leasing activities for over 300 retail outlets, 300,000 square feet of office space and several apartment buildings and parking garages. Earlier in his career, he was Senior Vice President and head of hotel acquisitions for Metric Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary of Metropolitan Life with a multi-billion dollar hotel portfolio. All of the hotels acquired by Metric Partners were joint ventures with owner/operators that required extensive management contract, purchase agreement and loan negotiations. He was a partner with Pannell Kerr Forster, an international C.P.A. and hospitality consulting firm, responsible for the San Francisco office hospitality consulting practice. He also served as President and Chief Executive Officer of a hotel real estate management, development and syndication company that developed and managed limited and full service hotels and resorts throughout the United States including the 250 key, luxury, Charter at Beaver Creek Condominium Hotel, Doubletree Suites Hotel-St. Louis and Holiday Inn-Dallas. During his career, Mr. Hiser has been directly responsible for completing well over $2.0 billion of hotel sales or acquisitions and has been the asset manager for two hotel portfolios with property values exceeding $1 billion each.
Mr. Hiser is a certified public accountant and licensed real estate broker in multiple states. He graduated from The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University and is an executive committee member of its Alumni Association. He earned an MBA degree from California State University at Hayward. As a very visible member of the hotel industry, he has written a number of articles for industry trade journals and is often featured as a speaker at industry conferences on matters related to hotel management contracts, development and finance matters.
Horwath HTL is the world's largest hospitality advisory firm with 57 offices in 32 countries with professionals dedicated to the hospitality industry. The Horwath HTL group has focused specifically on providing real estate, financial and contractual advisory services to its hospitality industry clients for over 90 years.
The North American offices are located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Miami, Toronto, Montreal, Santo Domingo and Mexico City.
The company is a member of Crowe Horwath International – a network of certified public accounting firms with more than 400 offices worldwide.
