OConnell Hospitality Group, LLC Appoints Rick Besse to Head Up Dallas Office

O'Connell Hospitality Group, LLC announced that hospitality industry veteran Rick Besse has joined the firm as Senior Managing Director for the Southwest region.

Mr. Besse will be a pivotal member of the O'Connell Hospitality Group.
Mr. Besse brings to OHG over 30 years of hotel industry experience, primarily in development, consulting and brokerage. He has a BA and MBA from the Hotel School at Michigan State University.

After graduate school Mr. Besse joined Pannel Kerr Forster & Co. in Atlanta, where he performed numerous feasibility studies throughout the Southeast. High profile projects he consulted on include the 1,000-room Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta and the 1,200-room Marriott Hotel on Canal Street in New Orleans, LA.

Mr. Besse's career was also highlighted by eight years in the restaurant industry with Taco Bell. He started as a real estate representative and worked his way up to Vice President of Development. He directed a staff of 21 real estate professionals and was responsible for the development of over 500 restaurants.

In the early 1980's, Mr. Besse formed his own firm specializing in consulting and brokerage in the hospitality industry. The most notable assignment he received was an exclusive contract with Marriott Corporation to procure sites for the both the Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn products in the Southwest United States. Mr. Besse was responsible for the acquisition of over thirty sites during this engagement. In the late 1990's, Mr. Besse was retained by Bedrock Partners, a Dallas based investment firm, to assist in the acquisition of hotels throughout the United States. Mr. Besse represented Bedrock in the acquisition of eleven of the eighteen hotels they acquired.

In 1996, Mr. Besse formed an investment group that acquired two hotels in the South Beach area of Miami Beach. He was Managing Director of the group and was responsible for the renovation of the historic properties. The properties were sold in 1998.

In 1998, Mr. Besse joined Patriot American Hospitality as Senior Vice President of Development. He was charged with growing the Wyndham Garden Hotel brand through acquisitions, conversions and ground up development.

Since Patriot American, Mr. Besse has been involved in hotel consulting and brokerage assignment throughout the country.

Mr. Besse is a member and former Board Member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants. He has served on the Board of Directors for the Alumni Association at Michigan State University and was Chairman of the Board of The Sports Club in Irving Texas, home of the Four Seasons Resort and Byron Nelson Golf Classic.

"We are ecstatic that Rick has joined OHG and has agreed to take a leadership role within the company. He will expand our presence in the Southwest and assist as we continue to grow our company. He was recruited by several of the top hotel brokerage firms around the country. We are very pleased that he chose OHG," said Jim O'Connell, Principal of O'Connell Hospitality Group, LLC in Boston.

O'Connell Hospitality Group, LLC specializes in the sales, financing and project development of hotels, resorts, inns and restaurants across the United States. It serves as advisor to private as well as publicly traded companies for acquisitions and dispositions of hospitality assets.

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Date Listed: 2004-01-19

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