Ken Overstreet
Former owner and webmaster of Schwartz Tours (with company from 1977).
As a ski travel company in the Northwest they were seeking the most cost effective way to promote their extensive product line. The web offered that opportunity. Building Skivaca.com, through the initial growth of the web gave Ken the chance for experimentation and to develop successful dynamics within the site.
With the seasonality of the product, portions of the year were available for self training and experimentation with this program. Ken Overstreet did all the design, flow and html programing for the site. With such a diverse product many scenarios were tried, and many were found to be very successful.
As things progressed his passion to the project actually spilled into an after hours hobby of research and testing. It is this expertise and the practical success of Skivaca.com that he brings to you.
Ken clearly understands the web industry and business mechanics from product development to the purchase of said product. This includes an extensive understanding of reservation software and processes. Ken developed the workhorse reservation system used by Schwartz Tours and later Destinations.com in their in-house golf and ski programs. Many of these mechanics, sales channels and processes are currently being incorporated into web applications.
Currently his skills have expanded to server administration including virtual hosting of multiple domains, email configurations and secure environments. E-commerce areas include merchant shopping basket programs.
Affiliation Positions Held:
Skitops:
Board of Directors - Membership Chair: 1993 - 1999 - Web Manager 2001 to present
Pacific Northwest ASTA Chapter:
Board of Directors - Technology Chair - Since 1998
City of Brier:
Park Board - Since 1997 - Web manager since 2001
While his formal training and expertise is in the travel industry, he has found there are many parallels in other industries. In fact, the travel industry in many ways offers a more complex and unpredictable environment than most businesses.
Let us test the theory -
