Dec. 7, 2006 - --Two weeks after Scott J. Newkam announced plans to retire, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Co. has ended the search for his successor as president and CEO.

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Ted J. Kleisner, 62, who recently stepped down as president and CEO of Greenbrier Resort and Club Management Co., will replace Newkam at Hershey Entertainment on Jan. 1.

Late last month, Newkam, 55, announced that he will retire Dec. 31 to spend more time with his family. He's been president and CEO at Hershey Entertainment since September 1999 and was named chairman in April 2000.

Kleisner spent the past two decades at The Greenbrier, a 6,500-acre resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., and the company's properties in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the British West Indies, Florida, Georgia and Wyoming.

"Ted Kleisner is the ideal person to take Hershey Entertainment & Resorts to the next level of greatness, and, in so doing, to further support and fuel the legacy of Milton S. Hershey," LeRoy Zimmerman said Wednesday in a statement.

Zimmerman, the former state attorney general, was elected chairman of the Hershey Entertainment board of directors and also will begin his new duties Jan. 1.

Kleisner, a graduate of the University of Denver School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management, began his career in 1967 with Albert Pick Hotels Corp. in Chicago and later had jobs with Hilton Hotels Corp., the Southampton Princess in Bermuda and the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Florida.

During his long tenure at The Greenbrier, one of Kleisner's duties was overseeing the top-secret federal government project called Project Greek Island. A huge nuclear bomb shelter 70 feet beneath the resort was to serve as the relocation site for members of Congress and the Supreme Court in the event of nuclear war.

Project Greek Island was declassified in 1995.

"Hershey Entertainment & Resorts advanced considerably under Scott Newkam's leadership," Zimmerman said in his statement. "I am absolutely certain that Ted Kleisner will propel us further still. It is a coup to land someone of his national gravitas."

Kleisner, who has served on the Hershey Entertainment board of directors since 1996, also is on the board of trustees of the Culinary Institute of America and the board of directors of the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

With his new job, Kleisner and his wife, Karen, will be moving to Chocolatetown.

"Hershey is one of the most remarkable communities in the world," Kleisner said in a statement. "We want to become part of it in every way."

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