Consulting Network

Chuck Conine
Managing Partner 

Chuck Conine provides employee and labor relations counseling, facilitates strategic planning sessions and works one-on-one with  client managers and executive teams as a performance coach. He also presents training programs customized for each client’s needs and serves as an expert witness in labor/employment matters. Immediately prior to founding Hospitality HR Solutions Chuck was executive vice president human resources and administration at Perkins & Marie Callender’s Inc. leading the HR, risk management, legal and administrative programs.  Earlier Chuck served as vice president, labor relations for Marriott Corporation’s HOST division, and as property HR director for Westin Hotels.  A 35-year veteran of restaurants, hotels and foodservice Chuck is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration and a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources.

In addition to operating the HHRS consulting network Chuck is a human capital consultant for Synergy Restaurant Consultants and leads the HR group for Cayuga Hospitality Advisors. Chuck is also an appointed Commissioner at Palm Springs International Airport where he chairs the budget/finance committee.   He authors a monthly column on HR issues for Smith Travel Research’s Hotel News Now.

Steve Kleine
Senior Social Media Strategist

With over fifteen years of experience social media strategist Steve Kleine has worked successfully with large brands and innovative start-ups on public relations, marketing and social media campaigns. He has guided clients through the rapidly evolving role that technology plays in determining a brand’s strength and its power to influence purchasing decisions and ultimately customer loyalty.  Steve’s expertise ensures that a client’s messages are being talked about in the right place at the right time — to the right audience.

As founder of a forward-thinking social media firm Steve also partners with employers to bring employee recruitment and retention strategies to the social networking audience; as job-seekers the majority of this audience are using social media to research and interact with potential employers before deciding to leave current jobs or apply for new employment.  Steve’s team focuses solely on social media; they are experienced marketers who creatively inject a brand’s message and identity into the social media conversation.

Steve holds a BS in Business Administration from San Francisco State University.

Dave Locke
Senior Culinary Training & Systems Specialist

Dave Locke is a creative, highly accomplished culinary expert who partners with both entrepreneurs and chains.  His experience includes culinary school teaching, hotel/restaurant culinary operations, and corporate food/beverage and supply chain management.  Dave works with clients to identify and solve menu and culinary system issues, and to develop “train the trainer” programs for culinary team members.

Dave is a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America where in addition to being awarded a fellowship during his studies, he was retained as a chef-instructor after graduation.  During his career he has served as a senior culinary officer with several restaurant chains including Marriott/HOST and Charley Brown’s .  Some of his restaurant clients include Gladstone’s 4-Fish, Islands Restaurants, King’s Hawaiian, Una Mas and Ruby’s.

Sima Reid
Senior Employee Benefits Specialist

Sima Reid reviews her client’s existing employee benefits and works with the client to provide benefit programs matching the client’s recruiting, retention and budget goals.  Her audits of existing programs often save money right away.

Sima has 30 years of experience in the insurance industry specializing in the management of employee benefit programs for large regional and national employers and in the development of stop loss/reinsurance products.  Prior to forming her own insurance brokerage firm Sima served as President of Brentwood Benefits and Consultants, Inc. handling a premium base of approximately $40 million. Earlier she was Executive Director of the Los Angeles Office Health Care Unit for Alexander & Alexander where she was responsible for over $25 million in annualized premium.

Sima is Chairperson of the Los Angeles Association of Health Underwriters Public Affairs Committee and spends time with legislators locally as well in Washington, D.C. Sima has been featured as a key speaker and as an educator for Health Underwriters, Risk Management Association, Association of Health Care Human Resources, the International Institute as well as other National Organizations. She is a graduate of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Doug Simons
Senior  Insurance and Risk Management Specialist

Doug’s clients benefit from his extensive experience in evaluating employee and guest claims.  He also audits a client’s existing workers compensation, liability and property insurance to quickly see where savings can be obtained.

Doug Simons is currently a senior vice president for a leading full-service property/casualty broker.  Doug began his risk management career as a Workers’ Compensation claims adjuster.  His expertise in the past 15 years has been on the development and marketing of Property and Casualty risk management programs for medium to large commercial clients.

Doug’s prior positions at two publicly-traded insurance brokerages involved overseeing several large multi-state claims operations for both workers’ compensation and general liability.

Doug’s experience in developing insurance programs includes but is not limited to all aspects of multi-line claim services, loss triangulations, retention analysis, charge back allocation models, loss trending analysis, conducting file reviews and self insured retention analysis.  He also managed third party administrators in areas such as litigation, bill review, nurse case management and structure settlements.   Doug holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice from Arizona State University.