PALISADIAN-POST, March 16, 2000
By Laurel Busby, Staff Reporter

The Democratic National Convention organizers have turned to a small Palisades company for help with housing the roughly 35,000 people expected to descend on Los Angeles for the August 14-17 event.

VIP Meetings & Conventions, which is tucked away in the business center at the top of the Highlands, began arranging hotel space for the DNC last May, according to company president Diane Conti. The convention planning effort has been criticized in the press for a slow start, but she said the press simply had not been informed of in-place arrangements. For example, although most hotel contracts were signed in June 1999, the information did not reach the media until last month.

"We are right on schedule," said Conti, whose company was formed in 1982 and has annual sales of $15 to 20 million. "And a lot of work has already been done behind the scenes."

In order to help guarantee the event's success, Mayor Richard Riordan shook up the convention's organizers last month when he replaced Lucy McCoy, the head of the host committee, with a trusted aide, Deputy Mayor Noelia Rodriguez. The move by Riordan, who had praise for both Rodriguez and McCoy, increases his control of the event, which is expected to bring up to $150 million in tourist revenue to the city, according to officials.

"In every major area -- finance, operations and communications -- we are on track or ahead of schedule," said Ben Austin, communications director for LA Convention 2000. "Noelia coming on board has accelerated the decisions that are being made. She has a unique ability to shepherd issues through city hall and get decisions made."

About 17,000 rooms are needed for the Staples Center Arena event, according to convention officials. Approximately 5,000 state delegates and alternates, 15,000 media representatives and other expected guests will be staying in 84 area hotels.

The state delegations receive first priority in choosing hotels, and most of them have already done so, Conti said. Her company is now awaiting the delegate names to slot into the appropriate hotel rooms. California delegates plan to stay at the Regal Biltmore and Wyndham Checkers in downtown Los Angeles. Several media hotels have also been assigned.

"The people from the DNC are very hard workers. It's a very exciting and well-organized event that we are working on," said Conti, who has lived in the Highlands since 1975. "We are staking our reputation on this being a very smooth process."

Downtown Los Angles offers about 4,000 high-quality hotel rooms, which means about 75 percent of the convention attendees will need to stay in other areas, notably Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Universal City, Hollywood, Marina Del Rey and the hotels surrounding the airport, according to Conti. A free shuttle bus system will route attendees to and from the event along paths designed to reduce traffic congestion.

"Obviously, there's going to be a lot of preparation and a lot of attention to detail to deal with people of such a high profile," Conti said. "But we've done this for years. We're used to attention to detail."

VIP Meetings & Conventions routinely handles housing for huge conventions. In January, for example, the company processed approximately 8,000 hotel reservations for the 60,000 people who attended the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) convention in Los Angeles. The company also has been the official housing bureau of the City of Los Angeles for about two years, so when conventioneers phone the city, VIP's name is given as the preferred housing provider. In addition, VIP has organized hotel space for conventions nationwide as well as in Africa, Mexico, Canada and South America.

According to Conti, part of VIP's appeal is a sophisticated computer system, which manages a database of convention hotel rooms. Instead of phoning numerous hotels, customers can place one call to VIP to check on room availability for all hotels and reserve their rooms. They can also reserve rooms on-line at www.vipmeetings.com.

A background in the sciences helped Conti and her partner Harry Kuemmerle, 51, develop the system. Conti, 58, who has a B.A. in mathematics from Cal State Northridge, spent 19 years working in the aerospace industry where she designed image-based guidance systems for cruise missiles, using skills ranging from computer programming to rocket science.

While working in separate divisions of Hughes Aircraft, Conti and Kuemmerle, who has a master's in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, also organized company golf tournaments. They eventually partnered to create a part-time business called VIP Golf.

This sideline took off when they landed a national convention of engineers and, in 1982, the two left Hughes to organize conventions full-time.

"There's nothing like that high of building a company," Conti said, "It was the entrepreneurial spirit brought to full bloom, and it's been damned exciting."

The company expanded from a two-person operation in 1989 after it landed a $1 million account for two shows for the Men's Apparel Guild in California. The expansion required a move out of Conti's den and into office space across Palisades Drive so additional people could be hired. The company now has seven employees, but often adds temporary help during especially busy times.

VIP still plans the conventions of its original engineering client. However, instead of managing all the logistics of conventions, 90 percent of its work is strictly organizing housing, which entails hotel contract negotiation, reserving rooms, mailing acknowledgements and orchestrating hotel room deposits.

Accuracy is vital to her business, Conti said. When something goes wrong with a reservation, it can be a big problem, while when everything is correct, her company often goes unnoticed. Contingency plans also are essential for dealing with an unexpected crisis. As well, hotel contracts have special requirements, so VIP clients can incur charges if an insufficient number of guests arrive.

Since their industry is service oriented, Conti and Kuemmerle have worked to make VIP unique by creating a "spirit of nurturing and caring."

"We give the kind of service that we would like to receive ourselves," said Conti. "We care about people, and they know it."