ill Connors, the new executive
director of the National Business Travel Association, was teaching
social studies in the Ticonderoga, N.Y., high school system in the
1980s when he began to understand the power of travel.
Located between Lake George and Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga is a
tourism mecca where, in summer, people come by the thousands to
enjoy the scenery and soak up Revolutionary War history.
In the course of his nearly 20-year career as a teacher and as a
superintendent in the Ticonderoga school district, Connors
developed a program that proved to be the first high school travel
and tourism major within an academic curriculum in New York
state.
"It made sense to me because so many of the students were likely
to work in travel," Connors says. "I also saw the program as a way
to keep more students on an academic rather than a vocational
track."
Dr. William Brennan, a local dentist who serves as president of
the Ticonderoga school board, remembers that Connors always was
motivated by offering the best educational options. "He was
genuinely devoted to young people," Brennan says.
Just to prove that he wasn't entirely academic in his interests
in travel, Connors also got into the business directly, signing on
in the summers as the captain of a Lake George cruise vessel.
In 1997, Connors spotted an advertisement looking for someone to
develop a standardized travel industry test. His reply led him to
ICTA, where he developed the Travel Agent Proficiency test, the
industry's nationally recognized test to measure basic travel agent
skills.
In 1998, Connors took a fulltime post at ICTA, serving first as
the institute's director and later as vice president of
relationship management. He moved to ASTA three years ago as senior
vice president of education, meetings and member services. He
looked after the myriad details of ASTA events and became a visible
presence at Society meetings, culminating in last November's World
Travel Congress in Hawaii.
A few weeks back, the NBTA offered him its top staff position.
It was an opportunity he says he couldn't pass up.
So the 47-year-old Connors is crossing over from representing
travel agents to speaking for the corporate travel community. But,
he notes, "corporate travel people face many of the same challenges
that travel agents do."
It took Connors a while to move from his career in education to
the travel industry. But he's moved rapidly ever since. Dr. Brennan
of the Ticonderoga School Board isn't surprised: "This is a guy who
listens and learns."