Alan Suchodolski
President & CEO, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

Alan Suchodolski is the co-founder and President of aRes Travel. Alan has been integral to aRes Travel development as one of the industry’s leading providers of technology solutions for destination marketing organizations, theme parks and travel related websites. Alan has more than 20 years of hospitality experience. From guest services to online merchandising, Alan’s breadth of knowledge spans the full spectrum of the profession. Suchodolski’s formidable leadership has helped grow ARES from its roots in Southern California leisure travel into a distribution network that spans the nation.

Alec House
Chairman of the Board, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

Alec House co-founded aRes Travel in 1995 and currently serves as Chairman of the Board. While completing his Bachelors Degree at San Diego State University in the early 1990s he worked at the San Diego Hilton Resort with now President, Alan Suchodolski. Leveraging their collective hospitality experience, Alec and Alan created a new attraction ticketing agency, a pre-curser to today’s online booking engine. Seizing the power of the Internet to market and sell travel, Alec recognized the need to provide online travel reservations and attraction ticketing technologies to the tourism industry and launched one of the first online booking engines. Today, aRes Travel provides booking solutions for major destinations and attractions nationwide, processing over $50 million in travel sales annually.

Keith Bockmier
Chief Financial Officer, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

In the role of Chief Financial Officer, Keith is responsible for overseeing the financial operations and fiscal accountability of the company. Keith is a graduate of San Diego State University and began his hospitality career at The Dana more than twenty years ago. He later worked as the Controller for the Holiday Inn Bayside and Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn before joining ARES where he has served as CFO for over 9 years. Keith is an efficiency expert at heart. He is motivated by a passion for clean, no-nonsense management and believes that a strong internal foundation equates to higher productivity for the company’s affiliate, hotel and attraction partners.

Rob Kazmierski
VP, Business Development, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

As Vice President of Business Development, Rob is responsible for the acquisition of ARES’ distribution partners including Destination Marketing Organizations, theme parks and geodomains. Rob graduated from San Diego State University’s Business School with a degree in Finance. His previous experience includes over 15 years of sales, marketing and corporate development for Internet related technology companies. Prior to joining ARES in 2002, Rob was with Kinzan, Inc. and was responsible for the Account Management of their top clients including Carlson Wagonlit Travel, AutoTrader, Maytag, Avon and Chase Merchant Services.

Wayne Blum
VP, Group Services, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

As Vice President of Group Services Wayne's responsibilities include group housing and group overflow services. Wayne is a graduate of San Diego State University, a Certified Hotel Administrator (CHA), and has over 25 years of hospitality experience. After several years in a variety of guest service and front office positions Wayne spent 15 years as the General Manager of The Dana on Mission Bay. Immediately prior to joining aRes Wayne served as the Vice President and General Manager of Tourwerks Sports & Entertainment Travel, a specialty Travel Agency focused on providing housing solutions for the touring entertainment industry. Wayne has worked as both a host and as an agent for a large variety of traveling groups, major city-wide events, national sports competitions and conventions. Wayne's knowledge and understanding of the hotel industry provides a great resource for aRes Travel Groups.

Mark Hughes
VP, Engineering, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

Mark Hughes is a driven, accomplished, solution-oriented systems architect and technical leader with 10+ years of online e-commerce experience. Since 2001, Mark has overseen the software development for the aRes Travel booking engine technology. As chief architect of the original ecommerce platform, Mark has overseen four life cycle, architected several platform additions and 3rd party integrations.

Kevin Kearns
Director of Media and Product Development, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

Kevin Kearns is a dedicated professional committed to achieving profitability and proven results while delivering outstanding customer service to all aRes Travel partners. At aRes Travel, Kevin’s core responsibility is digital media sales and in-market product development.

Kevin is a seasoned advertising sales professional with over 12 years of experience working within the tourism industry with expertise in both traditional and digital media sales management. He spent several years working in publishing at San Diego Magazine and What’s Here Magazine, where he brought his traditional media knowledge to the digital world by developing a strategic alliance between aRes Travel and What’s Here Magazine.

Utilizing aRes Travel’s e-ticketing technology and the rich content of What’s Here Magazine, the two companies developed a cutting edge web based software solution for the concierge industry, hotelrecommends.com. Finding his passion for digital media sales, Kevin joined Sandiego.com as the VP of Sales where he, with the help of his team, exponentially grew the number of online advertisers while solidifying strategic community partnerships.

Carmella Spencer
Senior Director, Marketing & Account Management, aRes Travel
LinkedIn Profile

Carmella’s travel and online marketing experience merged at aRes Travel. After several years with America Airlines, Carmella turned to her passion in marketing and advertising to join the ranks of early Internet marketing pioneers. With over 15 years of digital experience, Carmella was part of the web team for the initial launch of SignOnSanDiego.com, web site of the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper. Spencer moved to television as the Internet General Sales Manager for KGTV 10.com, the local ABC affiliate and a division of Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS) and later added her online expertise to the email marketing solutions company as General Manager, BlueHornet Networks.

She has served as Director of Marketing & Internet Services for the American Council on Exercise (ACE), a non-profit organization servicing the fitness community, VP of Sales and Marketing at SiteLab Interactive, a full service interactive agency. Most recently, Carmella was VP of Ecommerce at Mission Federal Credit Union. Carmella also serves as VP on the Executive Board of the San Diego Ad Club and co-chairing the organizations largest event, Interactive Day San Diego digital conference.