TriStar Hotel Group

Ken Edwards

Owner and Chief Executive Officer · Managing Partner

Founded TriStar in the mid-1990s and as Managing Partner oversees development and acquisitions, spending the majority of his time building, operating, and developing hotels across the country. Thirty-five years of hotel operating experience preceded it, beginning on property at the age of fifteen.

Began at a resort hotel with 14,000 square feet of meeting space, a 36-hole golf course, and a 56-slip marina, serving the Detroit corporate meetings market for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler. Was assistant catering director at seventeen and night catering manager at eighteen, running a food and beverage operation doing roughly $9 million in annual revenue.

Earned a B.S. in Hospitality from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and joined Holiday Inn's hotel company, the predecessor of IHG, as the only direct placement from his UNLV class rather than an internship, taking a catering director role at a 421-room airport hotel in St. Louis. Was assistant food and beverage director within six months and then food and beverage director at the company's Poughkeepsie, New York hotel, where he simultaneously attended the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park and graduated with a culinary arts degree. He later added an M.S. in Hospitality Management from the University of South Florida.

Moved to Servico, then a West Palm Beach-based owner-operator of roughly 200 hotels and the largest hotel company that owned all of its own assets, as food and beverage director in Kansas City. Was promoted to general manager of the Holiday Inn Green Tree in Pittsburgh, then general manager of the Royce Hotel at Pittsburgh airport, then to the Holiday Inn in Bloomington, Indiana, where he was named General Manager of the Year. Servico's program let its GM of the Year choose his next hotel; he chose the Radisson in Phoenix and was named General Manager of the Year a second time, the only manager in the company to win it twice and to win in consecutive years. He then took over the newly acquired Holiday Inn Select at 44th and Washington in Phoenix, ran a $5 million renovation, held it about two and a half years, and was named General Manager of the Year a third time. That hotel is today the Crowne Plaza Phoenix Airport.

Founded TriStar at roughly age thirty-five, capitalized in part by the Servico stock awarded with each General Manager of the Year award. Areas of expertise are revenue management, cash management, multi-property management, sales and marketing, and food and beverage.

• Has owned 15 hotels over his career and currently owns seven hotels across three states
• Served on the board of the IHG Owners Association from 2010 to 2014. The board seats roughly eight owners plus a chairman, drawn from an association of some 2,000 owners, requires that a member be a hotel owner or the chief executive of a large company, and permanently terms members off after a single four-year appointment
• Served on four IHG brand committees: the Direct Sales Committee as Chairman, the Holiday Inn Committee twice, and the IHG Priority Club frequent traveler committee
• Led the Radisson Fort McDowell to Radisson International Hotel of the Year, presented in Paris; an Employer of the Year nominee for the City of Phoenix
• Contributing columnist for Hotel Business Review and HotelExecutive.com
• Owner of HMBookstore, a web-based learning management system delivering hospitality training to university students, hotel operators, and hotel employees globally, used by 22 universities in North America and by a majority of the top ten hospitality universities
• Owner of Hotel Management Online, LLC, worldwide rights holder to i-Rates revenue management software

Rick Tomljenovic

Fractional CFO

With the company for more than 18 years, overseeing new construction, renovations, and operations, and currently serving as TriStar's Fractional CFO across the West, Southwest, Midwest, and Eastern regions with responsibility for on-site property management and project development.

More than 25 years in the hotel industry in management positions spanning General Manager, guest services and rooms division, accounting, and food and beverage. Brings depth in cash management, accounting, sales and marketing, and the takeover and turnaround of properties. Holds a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Forest Park College in Saint Louis, and taught there as a hotel instructor for five years.

• Has overseen the construction, conversion, and renovation of more than 40 hotels
• Has managed four-diamond hotels, full-service resorts, full-service hotels, extended stay, and select and limited service brands
• Works directly with architects and design firms on renovation and new-build projects
• Sits on the Carlson Hotel Owners Advisory Committee and is a past board member of the Carlson Hotels International Owners Association
• Has served on brand standard review boards
• Guest speaker and panel participant at hospitality industry conferences

How TriStar was built

Founding history, in Ken Edwards' account

TriStar's first management contract was a Ramada hotel in Orlando. The second assignment established the firm's defining practice: a Phoenix trustee called and awarded TriStar ten branded hotels across five cities in three states, which TriStar operated for eighteen months.

TriStar was then selected, in a competitive request for proposals, to manage one of the first American Indian resort and casino hotels. The firm spent two and a half years working with the Yavapai Nation to build the property, a 263-room hotel with a casino and 60,000 square feet of meeting space that opened as a Radisson resort and operates today as We-Ko-Pa in Scottsdale, and then managed it for the full ten-year term of the contract, approximately 2007 through 2017.

From there TriStar moved into ownership and development. It built two hotels at Phoenix airport, a Hilton Garden Inn and a Holiday Inn Express, and managed both for several years. The Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix Airport North was developed for approximately $33 million by a three-way partnership in which Ken Edwards held a third alongside two Phoenix partners, one of them a general contractor, and opened as a 292-room full-service hotel. TriStar also acquired and later sold a Quality Inn and a Comfort Inn in Chandler and Tempe.