Brad Grimes

 �  Title: Vice president and general manager.

 �  Organization: Holiday Inn Citi Centre, 1215 Wyandotte St., Kansas City; (816) 471-1333.

 �  The details: Grimes recently was named 2001 Hotelier of the Year by the Hotel and Motel Association of Greater Kansas City.

"It was a great, great feeling. It was very nice to be recognized by my peers," Grimes said. "I'm humbled to be among the group that have been there before me."

He served as treasurer of the association for two years, has been a board member since 1999 and is now vice president on the executive board.

"I'm still kind of reeling from the award from the hotel association," he said, adding that all the time and effort spent working in the community and for the hotel association was definitely worthwhile.

One of the biggest difficulties he's faced was the $4 million renovation completed last year on the Holiday Inn Citi Centre, which is on the National Register of Historic Buildings. The hotel's steam heating was replaced with a digital electric system. Then the hotel underwent massive renovations, including installation of high-speedInternet access, safes and other traveler amenities in all the rooms.

The biggest challenge, he said, was just staying open amid the huge project.

"We took it floor by floor through the building," he said. "When the new rooms started getting online and we were starting to get repeat guests into the new rooms, it was night and day difference. We've been getting rave reviews from our guests ever since."

�  Background: Grimes worked with the Lake of the Ozarks Chamber of Commerce, Holiday Inn at the Lake of the Ozarks, Holiday Inn Worldwide in Atlanta and Holiday Inn in Bozeman, Mont. He joined Holiday Inn Citi Centre in 1996 and works with owners RJH Holdings on properties in Hawaii, California and Argentina. He was named chief financial officer for RJH Holdings in 2000.

�  Education: Bachelor's degree in hotel management and tourism from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

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(c) 2002, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.