Department: Sales 
Birthday: May 25th
In this employee spotlight edition, Rose Dubrovich, VP of Business Development, shares her perspective on the evolution of onPeak over the years.
At 23 years old, I arrived at 110 West Hubbard in Chicago and was the first employee for Travel Technology Group (or TTG), a new corporate travel agency. What a ride it has been.
I have had the pleasure of rising from receptionist to the Executive Vice President of Sales. I was there for the inception of Compass and had the pleasure of working and selling with some of the best people in the business.
Over the years, some of my great co-workers that I met along my first journey are still with the company. People like Jen Campanella, Brad Finkbeiner, John Hunt, Eric Twilegar, and Mindy Twilegar. TTG became one of the top housing providers in the industry. I still remember my first sale, The American Library Association (ALA). A man we still work with today, Paul Graller, read a brochure that I dropped off while cold calling, and called me to request a visit to our offices. At the end of my hour-long meeting, he said, “I’d love to work with your company. My two meetings are 60,000 room nights.” (If only they still were 😊). When I told my boss, he didn’t believe me, and was sure that I misheard Paul. My boss could not believe that I signed them up without a formal presentation. We still today serve ALA.
Not even 30 days later, Paul introduced me to National Restaurant Association (NRA), which would become my second account. Believe it or not, they had been doing all of their reservations in notebooks. The operations team almost fainted when Mary, Pat, and Laney gave us 120 notebooks to bring back to the office. That was the beginning of a relationship that we still have today (thankfully, no more notebooks)!
Since then, I have worked with many other organizations like HIMSS, IHA, ASCRS, AUA and have been blessed with life-long friends.
Around this same time, I began collaborating with GES, an industry partner that employed some of my favorite vendors and friends, such as Julie Smith, John Loveless, and Chuck Grouzard. Among the cherished traditions that I hold dear is the GES St. Patrick’s Day party, an event where I first met Jeff Quade, had the opportunity to participate in the parade, dye the river green, and dance the day away with so many great friends.
Still looking for Mr. Keith, when I turned 40, I accepted a position with Ambassadors in Atlanta to be the Senior Vice President of Sales, so I packed it up and moved. There, I had the pleasure of meeting Michele, Jane, Lisa, and Tiffany. Our office was in the Merchandise Mart in Atlanta, where we worked for Ambassadors, and we grew the company. And only my Atlanta family truly understands what a wild time this was.
The investment company who had purchased TTG while I was at Ambassadors, then purchased Ambassadors, and I wound up going back to my old home in Chicago and my new-found southern charm came with me to be the Senior Vice President of Sales with all of my old friends. Ambassadors and TTG became onPeak, where I ran into Kevin, Katie, Brian and both Jasons again.
In 2015, after onPeak became an award-winning company, and considered the most innovative in the marketplace, the company was bought by GES, and merged with Travel Planners. The unique story of Travel Planners and onPeak was that we were always competing against each other. I often saw Beth, Lisa and heard about Deb, Jaime, and Louise throughout my career, and now I have the pleasure of working with them every day.
All along the way, I’ve always wanted my home to be open to my dear friends and coworkers to have a cozy place to land while traveling. It’s been called, the “Rosie Ritz.”
I am still blessed to be working with all of my favorite people today. My words of wisdom to all of you would be this: this is an industry that you have to have a hard passion for and is a very small world. Never burn a bridge, always be kind to your vendor partners and your competitors, because you never know who will wind up being your great friends and co-workers in life.
