Dan Palley was the first employee hired when TRAMS, Inc. was founded in 1986. Fresh out of computer school, Dan ignored the advice of his parents and friends and abandoned his job with a Fortune 500 company to go to a small start-up with an uncertain future. 20 years later, Dan is still the head of all stuff technical at TRAMS, including overseeing the small army of developers that create the products that make up the TRAMS line.

He's considering training his son, Nick, to program so that he can look forward to his retirement in the not-so-near future.

Donna Sisson began her career in the travel industry in 1996 when she hired on with Brownell Travel. For ten plus years, Donna served as a senior executive for Brownell responsible for finance, planning, and human resources. During her tenure, Donna managed the conversion of the back office system to TRAMS Back Office and played a key role in integrating CientBase into the company. In 2006, Donna launched Context Resource Management, an organizational development and management consulting firm. In 2007, Donna became a TRAMS Certified Consultant and since then has assisted numerous agency owners with TRAMS Back Office and ClientBase product implementation, training, and coaching as well as with travel agency management consulting. Donna resides happily in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband Jim and not-to-be overlooked cat named Lily Ribbons. Donna’s son, Jon, also lives in Birmingham and attends college there.

Frank Diaz is from a manufacturing environment where he was the traveler. His area of responsibility for TRAMS is customer support, education and testing. While working full-time, Frank became a CTA. Based in Los Angeles he conducts formal client education, WebEx classes, in conjunction with being a presenter at Technical/Marketing University (TMU), and Summer Camp.

In his spare time Frank umpires both varsity high school softball, Little League Baseball, and still has time to coach Girls Under 19 soccer team with his daughter. Frank now enjoys photographing his 16 year old grandson at his motocross races.

Helen Lewis, TCC, CTC, began her career in the Travel Industry in Northern California as an agent in 1982. In 1991, having moved to Illinois, she switched to back office accounting and TRAMS for DOS. 1997 found her in Georgia working for two Travel Agencies as their TRAMS Back Office operator. After earning her TCC designation in 1998, she became a trainer for TRAMS, Inc. in the Atlanta Training Center. Now, back in Illinois, she still works for the Georgia agencies remote and is one of the Chicago and WebEx trainers for ClientBase Plus and TRAMS Back Office.

Jeanne Fick has been with TRAMS, Inc. for 9 years and in education for over 40. In her capacity as Training Manager, she conducts classes in TRAMS products, as well as implements new training programs and curriculum. Also responsible for documentation, Jeanne compiles the Help Files found inside TRAMS programs, and is responsible for the Recorded Trainings and Knowledge Base found on the www.trams.com web site. She is a former Peace Corps volunteer serving in Swaziland, Africa, enjoys hiking, sports, and helping out in the community.

Karen Schmidt has 25 years experience in the travel industry. As a Customer Solutions Specialist with Sabre, Karen focuses on driving the sale and adoption of Sabre products, builds strong customer relationships via a solid understanding of customer technical and operational environments, and Identifies agency training needs and coordinates customized training programs.
Karen’s previous position with Sabre was a Senior Training Consultant. She specialized in custom virtual and traditional training, as well as consulted with customers on providing solutions to best meet the agency's technology and operational needs. Prior to her career with Sabre, Karen held various positions with American Airlines in Reservations, Training, Airport Services and Management. She has also worked as a Corporate Travel Consultant specializing in international travel and managed a large Leisure Travel Agency. Karen has an Associates Degree in Travel and Tourism. She is located in Chicago, Illinois and in her free time raises money for animal shelters and rescues feral cats.

Ken Jonker is one of our most senior executives – that is in age. He has been with TRAMS for five years. While his background is finance and he is a CPA, his first love is sales and marketing. He grew a small business in to a large successful travel agency in a few years after he made the switch from finance to sales/marketing. As a heavy user of earlier versions of ClientBase, he is able to relate well to our current base of customers using ClientBase Plus. His primary responsibilities in the company are national accounts, which include all of our consortia relationships and he aggressively pursues new Live Connect suppliers. Ken is also the primary author behind the ClientBase Plus Monthly News Bulletin.

In 1986, after great research, Lee started TRAMS, Inc. to “provide technologies to help travel agencies and agents succeed.” The concept was straightforward - develop products and services that were needed by agents and provide them as affordable, easy to use, reliable, and fully supported solutions.
In 2006 TRAMS became part of the Sabre family and since then Lee has added General Manager of Sabre Leisure to his TRAMS roles. Sabre Leisure’s goals are to provide solutions that compete and stand on their own, but also integrate working with each other – and other industry products – to add even greater value and benefits for agents.
Lee’s background includes an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of California at Davis, graduating Valedictorian, and a Master’s degree in Marketing, graduating with honors, from the University of Southern California. In 1983, Lee traveled to South Africa where he was the first American rugby player in the South African Federation.
Lee spends the majority of his time overseeing TRAMS’ operations, working with current and future agency users, and speaking at industry functions. Lee also spends a great deal of his time trying to keep up with his children as he and his wife Linda have three children, daughter, Haley (14), and eleven -year-old twins, Nikki and Tyler.

Linda Pannekeet works in the Los Angeles office Managing Client Relations and the Quality Assurance Department at TRAMS. During Linda's 16 year tenure, she has gained an in-depth understanding of the applications offered by TRAMS and how that relates to customer's needs. This experience has helped Linda to make an impact in her role at TRAMS with regards to improved agency implementation procedures, delivering customer's concerns and requests to the development team and improvements to testing procedures for the Windows and Browser versions of ClientBase .

Some of Linda's other interests include: Cooking, swimming, and of course, shopping.

Lindsay Chomyn has worked with TRAMS, Inc since 1996 in assorted positions. She currently holds the position of Director of Operations for TMA . Lindsay's background is Accounting/Management and she has spent some time as a travel agent. Her background makes working at TRAMS a perfect fit and it shows in her enthusiasm for her daily work at TRAMS.

Lindsay and her husband, Chris spend their time outside of work trying to keep up with their two young daughters Anneke 6 and Alexis 4. One look at Lindsay's desk, covered in pictures of the family, tells you how much she enjoys motherhood.

Lloyd West has been with TRAMS in Los Angeles for the past 8 years. He started as the Support Desk Manager, moved to TRAMS Back Office Product Manager and is currently responsible for International Accounts & Special Projects.

Lloyd has a varied and far ranging past that centered on a 22-year career with the US Air Force. He flew fighter aircraft for most of that career, spending most of his time in the F-111 and the F-15. That distinguished career included a combat tour in South East Asia, where he was awarded 22 Air Medals and 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses. When his Air Force career came to an end, Lloyd added an Associates of Arts Degree in Travel & Tourism to his MBA in Marketing. Armed with these new skills he entered the Travel Industry as a Travel Agency owner and manager.

Lloyd was one of the first users of the TRAMS Back Office Product starting back in 1988. He is still actively involved in agency operations and still performs many of the everyday TRAMS everyday functions. Before joining TRAMS in Los Angeles, Lloyd was also a TRAMS Certified Consultant in the western US working with hundreds of TRAMS users.

Marcie Karavakis is a founding member of the 'TRAMS International Team for Sales' and has been with TRAMS, Inc. for 14 years. In her previous lives she's sold advertising, real estate and has been a headhunter. Her territory is the Mid West and Canada and she's acquiring a Canadian accent by spending so much time there. Marcie lives in downtown Chicago with her 75 lb standard poodle 'Curly Lambeau' (you can take the girl out of Wisconsin, but you can't take Wisconsin out of the girl) and when not selling software to travel agents she can be found plotting and scheming about her next vacation, opening a bottle of nice wine or planning the next "MarcieGras", the perpetual celebration of her 29th birthday.

On a personal note, she has always loved to travel and working as an agent afforded her the opportunity to see the world. One particular highlight – two African safaris within a six month period! And a visit to her favorite city, London, is never complete without a show or two per day!

Today, Nolan is a popular keynote motivational speaker and consultant. In 1999 Nolan formed his own company; Visionistics. Visionistics’ mission is to help others achieve personal and professional success. “The Visionistics Process of Success” ™ is based on the concept that success is a natural result of integrity of Vision, Strategies, Tactics and Ethics. Nolan’s programs have been presented to enthusiastic audiences around the world.

Technology still plays an important role in Nolan’s career. He believes that technology is integral to success in the modern world. Without balance and strategic application, technology can become a barrier to success. With integrated and visionary thinking, it can enable and enhance the potential for even greater success.

Sandy Bush has been in the travel industry for over 25 years. Her overall experience covers both front and back office, management and training. During the course of her career, Sandy has also been a trainer at various Colleges and Travel Schools. Sandy is TCC (TRAMS Certified Consultant) and has been a TBO/CBP instructor with TRAMS since 1997.

In 1996 Sandy started her own consulting company, Travel Consulting, Inc. Sandy and her husband just celebrated their 25-year anniversary. Sandy enjoys camping, hiking and traveling to off-beat adventure locations.

Sarani Gaines is currently our TMA Operations Manager. As a member of the TRAMS family for the past 18 years, Sarani's roles have been varied - from teaching the TRAMS introductory training, to the special topic classes at Tech U (TMU) and Summer Camp; to managing the accounting support desk, to overseeing the TRAMS Certified Consulting program to managing the Quality Assurance Department. With her calm, no-nonsense approach, the Support team still relies on her to assist with advanced accounting support challenges.

Her spare time is split between chasing and spoiling her nieces and nephews, and doing her patriotic duty to keep the economy afloat with shopping.

Scott Caddow's passion for the travel industry began while he was still attending college at UCSD back in the early 1980's. He began by organizing large group and corporate events, including the Balloon and Polo Festival held annually in La Quinta, California. In 1989 he opened his first travel agency in this quaint desert community, Firstworld Travel. During his time in La Quinta, he served as President of the La Quinta Chamber of Commerce, and was very active in the business community.
In 1992, he returned to his college town of San Diego and founded Travel Concepts, Ltd. Travel Concepts served San Diego’s business travelers for over 10 years, and was a leader in Corporate, Leisure and wholesale travel. In 1997, he acquired a leisure travel agency, The Cruise Place. With the leisure experience of The Cruise Place added to his family of travel agencies, Scott's staff is now positioned to fully take care of all of its clients needs. The Cruise Place strives to be large enough to provide the strength, stability and buying power our clients require, but small enough to be flexible, nimble and move with the changing times. In 2005 a large cruise only company was acquired in Tucson, Arizona--which soon became Scott's home and corporate headquarters.
The last few years have been devoted to growing the company's expansive group program and clientele. Clear Channel Cruises is a private label program serving 1200 radio stations across the country under the Clear Channel umbrella. The core of these programs are the annual "Oldies Music" and "Country Music” cruises that draw over 1000 guests. The Cruise Place has also been expanding into Culinary Cruises with numerous Celebrity Chef Cruises, Winery Cruises and general Culinary Programs.

Sharon Meyer, CTC, has been an integral part of the success of TRAMS, Inc. since she joined the company 20 years ago. As a front line agent the 5 years prior, she used that experience to help market, train, and support the TRAMS Back Office program. She is now EVP and the ClientBase Product Manager, where she is involved in every aspect of the development, marketing, training and support of the ClientBase programs. A highly regarded trainer, she has helped agents adapt to new technologies at dozens of industry conferences and events. Even after training thousands of agents, the favorite part of Sharon's job is helping Travel Agencies benefit from technology.

Happily married to Steve, she is also the mother of 3 awesome kids: Jordan, Austin and Dylan. Sharon loves to travel with the family, coach volleyball and spend lots of time cheering on the kids at water polo, soccer and school activities.

Shirley and her husband, Andy have two grandsons, Sean Thomas was born on July 1, 2005 and Kevin Mason was born on May 25, 2007. She loves being a grandmother, and is an avid reader and enjoys playing with her dog, Duke.

Stacey L. Mack, West Coast Regional Sales Manager for TRAMS Inc., has been with TRAMS since 1998. Stacey worked for Third Party solutions selling ClientBase from 1996 and became a part of the TRAMS team when they bought the company two years later. In addition to selling TRAMS back office, ClientBase and TMA, Stacey has taught classes for ASTA, ATAA, Vacation.com, WESTA National Conferences, and other travel organization meetings on the benefits of Customer Relationship Management. Every day presenting three products that she believes creates phenomenal success in travel agencies is a true joy for Stacey. “I also couldn't ask for better people to work with and work for. Being around the people in the TRAMS family is contagious.” Stacey received her Bachelor's Degree in Marketing and Public Relations in 1996 from Illinois State University. A topic she loves talking about is her Golden Retriever Dreyfus who turned 11 this year.