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JAMES SIMKINS
Co-founder and Principal of FST Asset Management, James has had a distinguished international career with Westin Hotels & Resorts and most recently, MTM Luxury Lodging.

Covering five countries on four continents, he began his career at The Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1972. During a period of 10 years, he gained considerable exposure in all operating and support functions of this trend-setting hotel, and rose to an executive position before being recruited away to be the Managing Director of a manufacturing company in 1980. Over the next three and a half years, he gained significant experience in the fields of clothing and textiles, printing, instrumentation distribution, and engineering services.

In 1984, Simkins returned to his favored hotel industry and in early 1987, accepted a company transfer to the Kowloon Shangri-la as Executive Assistant (Resident) Manager. Operated by Westin, this Hong Kong hotel was regularly ranked in the top 20 in the world, and operated at GOP levels of 57% - 61%, substantially ahead of its competitive set including the Peninsula, Mandarin and Regent hotels. This property was the “cash cow” that generated and financed much of Shangri-la’s growth in the late ’80’s and established them as their own Management Company.

A later transfer to the 1473 room Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles resulted in his promotion to Managing Director, with the specific mission of resurrecting this property from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and the impact of the LA Riots. Simkins assumed the lead role in coordinating the requisite financial and legal elements of this workout, while still maintaining and improving the operation of the hotel.

Having successfully achieved these objectives, in January 1993, Simkins was promoted to Vice President, Operations of Westin International Asia Pacific and General Manager of The Westin Tokyo. He successfully opened this $620 million project in October 1994 and within 26 months, achieved the position of top performing luxury hotel in all of Japan. Of particular importance during the pre-opening period was the revision of the pre-opening “bubble era” budget (eliminating $19.5 million in costs) and the development of a new salary/compensation system that was later also adopted by Sapporo, owner of the hotel, in their mainstream beer brewing and distribution business.

During the same period, he provided operational oversight to all Westin properties in Asia with particular emphasis on the opening of The Westin Osaka, and assisted with due diligence work with the Starwood/Goldman Sachs joint venture that purchased Westin in 1995. A final assignment to Australia to open the landmark Westin Sydney was successfully accomplished prior to joining MTM Management, and provided further valuable insight into the development, space planning, value-engineering, and technical services functions.

James graduated with a business degree from the University of South Africa and attended the University of Witwatersrand where he studied Civil Engineering. Simkins also has the AH&MA Institute Diploma and has lectured in Engineering for Hospitality Management for that organization. In all locations, he has assumed a leadership role within the industry and was acknowledged in 1996 by Leaders magazine as one of the world’s leading Hotel Managers. For some years, the opportunity of applying his analytical, technical, and operational skills in a company dedicated to innovative and entrepreneurial asset management of luxury hotels has been a goal for Simkins. Being a Principal of FST with his friend and colleague of many years, Jim Treadway, serves that objective.

JIM TREADWAY
Co-founder and Principal of FST Asset Management, is best known for his 23 years with Westin Hotels and Resorts and 11+ years, founding, co-owning and operating MTM Luxury Lodging, a hotel management company specializing in luxury, independent hotels, resorts, and inns.

Treadway's career with Westin began in 1972. His managerial assignments included the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg, Hotel Scandinavia in Oslo, and The Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta. He served as Managing Director of The Olympic (now Four Seasons) in Seattle, The Westin Hotel in Seattle, The Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles, and The Westin Kauai in Hawaii. In late 1990, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Operations for Westin, and in 1991 became President of the North American Division of Westin Hotels and Resorts, a position he held until the company was sold in mid-1995.

During Treadway’s career with Westin, he was instrumental in orchestrating a closer alignment between Westin, the hotel management company, and its property owners. Prior to Treadway’s leadership of Westin North America, Westin perceived its customers as its consumers. Treadway was instrumental in ensuring that Westin balanced the needs of its three customer constituencies: the owner, the consumer, and the employee.

Treadway is a third generation hotelier. He attended Dartmouth College and graduated from Cornell University in Hotel Administration at which his areas of emphasis were finance and accounting. Treadway is a respected leader in the U.S. hotel industry and has been a frequent speaker and/or panelist at industry events. He has guest lectured at Cornell, Florida State, Washington State, Nova University, and the University of Washington. He is a former board and executive committee member of the American Hotel and Motel Association, he is also a past president of Washington State's Hotel and Lodging Association. Additionally, he is an officer and director of the Seattle Convention and Visitors' Bureau and a founding member of Seattle's Lodging Roundtable. His other board position is with Merrill Gardens, L.L.C., which owns and operates 60 retirement and assisted living communities across the U.S.

ROB FIX
Chief Financial Officer and Partner of FST, was most recently the CFO of Trillium Corporation. Based in Bellingham, Washington, Trillium is a real estate holding and development company specializing in timber, and hospitality and commercial real estate. Trillium has holdings in Colorado, Alaska, Washington, Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela. As CFO, Rob was responsible for the finance/accounting department, negotiating and replacing debt, negotiating real estate transactions, and structuring the recently completed joint venture involving Resort Semiahmoo. Trillium’s hospitality holdings reported to Rob, as well.

Prior to transferring to Trillium’s corporate headquarters, Rob was the Director of Finance for its subsidiary, Resort Semiahmoo. Rob joined Semiahmoo in early 1999, shortly after Trillium had acquired the 200-room inn, thereby unifying the ownership of the entire resort under Trillium’s ownership. Rob was charged with consolidating the accounting for two golf courses, a marina, and extensive real estate and hotel operations. During his first year with the resort, he orchestrated a full systems conversion, including the hotel PMS, F & B POS, golf, spa, and health club POS.

Prior to joining Resort Semiahmoo, Rob worked in a development/acquisition capacity as Director of Development for Interstate Hotels. His development experience started with Red Lion as a development analyst and then as Director of Development for DoubleTree. During this time, he sourced new transactions, coordinated due diligence, and led analysis of new business opportunities, in addition to negotiating management agreements with various property owners.

Early in Rob’s career, he held the position of Controller for several Pacific Northwest Red Lion properties, in addition to the West Coast Roosevelt Hotel in Seattle.

Rob is a graduate of Washington State University’s Hotel and Restaurant School.

MARC PUJALET
Marc joined FST Asset Management as a partner in October 2005. He joins MTM and FST with 30 years of hospitality experience, primarily in the areas of sales and marketing. His primary responsibilities for FST revolve around the appropriate positioning and distribution tactics of the hotels under asset management.

Most recently, Marc was President of Noble House Hotels & Resorts, where he led all hotel operations efforts as well as strategic marketing activities for this $200 million (revenue) company. He was recruited to Noble House as Chief Marketing Officer and was promoted to President after one year with the company. While at Noble House, he built new marketing tools, upgraded hotel operations infra-structure, raised quality standards and recruited a stronger operations and marketing team for the company to the ultimate goal of improving company profits by repositioning the Brand from three-star to four-star quality. During his three year tenure with Noble House, the company was ranked highest in average rate and highest or second-highest in terms of revenue per available room generated by a US management company. Additionally, during this time, Noble House improved hotel owner relations, as well as associate and guest satisfaction levels, key personal objectives when he joined the company.

Before being recruited to Noble House, he was Senior Vice President of Marketing for Seattle's Convention and Visitors Bureau from 1999 until 2002. His responsibilities included oversight of convention and tourism sales and marketing, convention services, reservations and housing, public relations and communications. Pujalet had a leadership role in the aggressive re-branding of the Seattle destination, implementation of improved sales and housing technology, a new web site and a new advertising campaign.

Prior to this position, Pujalet was Senior Vice President, World-Wide Marketing for Westin Hotels & Resorts, capping a 21-year career with the upscale hotel chain. During his tenure with Westin, he led the revitalization of the hotel company's sales and marketing organization, created a dramatic, award-winning advertising campaign and a new frequent-guest program, all resulting in the improvement of delivery of business to hotels from the Westin flag from 38% to 55%. He started with Westin in 1977 as a management trainee at the Ilikai Hotel in Hawaii, spent 10 years in increasing responsibility at the St. Francis in San Francisco before being tagged to be the regional Director of Sales and Marketing at their headquarters in Seattle.