andré valk, cmp, director of sales as the tallest on the hinton+grusich team, andré valk, cmp, stands as our vice president of sales. andré’s career in the hospitality industry began in 1984 in germany, where he completed his mandatory military training in the food and beverage division of the german armed forces. following the required two-year apprenticeship, he attended the hotel management school in münster, and completed his practical training at an 18th century castle hotel. he then moved to frankfurt to work at the kempinski hotel gravenbruch, where he acquired extensive experience in operations. in the summer of 1987, he moved to london to become senior front office executive at the mayfair hotel inter-continental. after about a year there, kempinski hotels lured him back to join the operations team at the grand kempinski dallas (now the hotel inter-continental dallas) as front desk clerk. shortly thereafter, he made the move into sales and steadily worked his way up to associate director of sales. during his seven years in dallas, andré developed a strong admiration for chicago (and the entire midwest) and moved to his “favorite city” in 1995. andré represented the los angeles convention & visitors bureau in their midwest office, before joining the hinton+grusich sales team in august 1996 initially as director of sales. andré has the european equivalent of an mba in hotel management and is very proud to be the first german ever to receive the cmp designation, which he earned in july 1995. andré’s sales territory includes the states of missouri and kansas, as well as the chicagoland area. he covers a multitude of clients within the association, corporate and incentive markets. after successfully soliciting the kansas and missouri market, he designed and developed “rendezvous”, the h+g annual tradeshow and reception, now approaching its 4th year in kansas city and st. louis. he maintains an active membership in pcma and mpi. andré served on mpi’s chicago area chapter board of directors from june 1999 through may 2000 and for several years, he served as the vice-chair of their cmp study group. after chairing a successful 2002 awards gala, he was active on the coty & mentor programs and is currently co-chair of the awards selection committee. as a previous chicago condo-owner, andré just bought a home (with a huge yard!) in downtown evanston, just north of the city. he still enjoys biking or rollerblading when not grass mowing or tree-clipping… when in town (…he also loves to travel) you can find him at a sunny beach, or cooking up a meal for his friends he likes to entertain. if you ever have a question about pet shop boys and/or abba…give andré a jingle…a cd collection with over 1200 cds tells you that he really likes music…