Kudos to the board of directors of Brand USA, the public-private tourism promotion company launched by the Travel Promotion Act.
After flipping through Brand USA's first annual report, for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2011, we concluded that the industry owes a debt of gratitude to the 11-member board that launched the company.
The report indicates that the board members and their employers donated nearly a quarter of a million dollars' worth of services to the corporation in the form of professional and administrative services in order to get the company up and running. Even cash-starved Amtrak came through with IT support and free travel.
All these donations were appraised at fair market value under guidelines agreed to by Brand USA and the Commerce Department and thus qualified for federal matching funds.
The board could have used its startup appropriation from Congress to obtain legal services, office space and administrative support for needed startup activities, but it chose not to.
In the grand scheme of things, this gesture might be more symbolic than anything, but we believe it to be a gesture that should not go unappreciated.