PING!
“Immediately before taking the helm of the National Restaurant Association in October 2007, Sweeney was president and CEO of AARP Services, the wholly owned taxable subsidiary of AARP. She was responsible for growing annual revenues from $175 million to $785 million during her tenure — revenues used to support AARP’s mission”
http://www.restaurant.org/aboutus/leaders/president/
AARP’s mission = liberal sales & marketing commercial business.
National Restaurant Association Thanks President Barack Obama for Dining Out
(Washington, D.C.) National Restaurant Association President and CEO Dawn Sweeney yesterday sent the following thank you letter to President Barack Obama:
Dear Mr. President:
On behalf of the National Restaurant Association – which represents an industry of nearly one million restaurant establishments in the United States - we want to thank you for dining out!
During these challenging economic times, your recent and highly visible visits to restaurants with the Vice President and your family are exactly the type of activities that help convey the important role of restaurants in the economy and the importance of all of us doing our part to help support a revitalized economy.
By dining out, you have helped support some of the 13 million Americans that depend on our industry for their livelihood. Each time we dine out with our co-workers, friends or family we help support the servers, cooks, host and hostesses, managers, busboys, suppliers and countless others who work in and depend on this industry. When Americans dine out, they our backing an industry that has a $1.5 trillion impact on our economy. For every dollar spent in a restaurant, more than two dollars are generated in supporting industries. In fact, the restaurant industry is larger than the U.S. agricultural industry, the U.S. airline industry and the U.S. motion picture industry combined.
Beyond the economic impact of our industry, we also provide a benefit for the countless Americans who have been working harder and longer and need a break from the hectic pace of life to spend quality time with family and friends. As the commander-in-chief, a father of two and a husband, you know firsthand the rewards of time together with your family. Dining out over a good meal allows for an opportunity to relax, catch up and focus on family and friends.
Simply put, dining out benefits millions of Americans.
As we all look for ways to improve the economy and create jobs, we thank you for your recent restaurant visits and encourage you to continue enjoying time at one of our almost one million restaurants across the country.
Sincerely,
Dawn Sweeney
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Restaurant Association
http://www.restaurant.org/pressroom/pressrelease/print/index.cfm?ID=1798
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Gag me ...
Dollars to donuts, she’s working with MarieMichelle Antoinette of hell-thy restaurant food.
Possible tie-ins between Chris Wilson (Wilson Research Strategies, WRS), The National Restaurant Association (NRA), Rahm Emanual, etc.
Wiki:
(Chris) Wilson served as Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas when President George W. Bush was governor, working directly for Karl Rove, and following Karen Hughes when she left the Party to join the campaign.
Wilson served as Global Director of Research for Weber Shandwick from 1999 - 2001. He started his own firm, Wilson Research Strategies, in 1998.
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2002/02/25/daily7.html
Opinion researcher Wilson rings up 411
Washington Business Journal
Date: Monday, February 25, 2002, 4:26pm EST
Wilson Research Strategies said Monday that it acquired 411 Communications, another Washington area opinion research firm.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but Chris Wilson, WRS’s president ...
(snip)
WRS has six principals and was relaunched as a subsidiary of McLean, Va.-based Qorvis Communications in August. About 30 to 40 percent of the company's work is political and its biggest clients include Pfizer, Saudi Arabia and the National Restaurant Association.
(snip)
City strikes deal to keep restaurant show
Financial package worth $2 million comes after group reschedules to avoid NATO, G-8 summits
July 27, 2011|By Kathy Bergen, Tribune reporter
The National Restaurant Association announced Tuesday it will keep its show in Chicago next year, but it will move the dates to avoid overlap with the NATO and G-8 summits.
The high-profile show will be held May 5-8, rather than May 19-22, at McCormick Place, where it has been a fixture since 1950.
The decision was made after Chicago came forward with a one-time financial package aimed at reducing some losses that could occur due to the schedule change. The association, the city's convention bureau and the mayor's office declined to discuss the specifics of the deal.
The package is worth about $2 million and includes public and private funding sources, according to sources close to the deal. That total includes noncash items, such as marketing and attendance-building services that the bureau often provides to trade shows, sources said.
(snip)
Mary Pat Heftman, executive vice president of convention for the restaurant association, said Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the convention bureau “worked to mitigate potential losses” and pledged to help drive attendance on the new dates.
Emanuel helped to bring NATO and the leading industrial nations to Chicago using his influence as a former White House chief of staff, and he found himself scrambling to ease the resulting timing conflict.
Losing the restaurant show, even for one year, would have been a public relations nightmare for the city, which is racing to recover from a federal court ruling tossing out labor-rule changes aimed at reducing exhibitors’ costs.
The restaurant show is one of the city's largest, this year drawing 58,000 attendees who packed hotels and restaurants, and generated an estimated $93.3 million in spending. It typically is the big game in town during its run.
(snip)
http://disclosures.house.gov/lc/lcxmlrelease/2008/MM/700070312.xml
#72.
Contribution Type:
FECA
Contributor Name:
National Restaurant Association PAC
Amount:
$200,000.00
Date:
3/11/2008
Payee:
Wilson Research Strategies
http://watchdog.net/lob/c/700070312
Lobbyist ID Mr. John Gay
http://www.nrn.com/article/nra-texas-gov-perry-push-ethanol-waiver
NRA, Texas Gov. Perry push for ethanol waiver
June 24, 2008
WASHINGTON National Restaurant Association officials and other food industry representatives concerned about ethanol-related food inflation joined Texas Gov. Rick Perry here Tuesday to call on the Environmental Protection Agency to approve his request for a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard, or RFS.
Perry, backed by the NRA and other members of the recently formed Coalition for Balanced Food and Fuel, told an audience at the National Press Club that a reduction of this year's RFS mandate would ease skyrocketing corn prices that have hurt his state's livestock and poultry industries. Perry in April petitioned the EPA to cut the mandate from 9 billion to 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol blended into the nation's fuel supply.
John Gay, the NRA’s senior vice president of government affairs and public policy ...
(snip)