About the Associates of NaTour Communications

NaTour Communications often partners with other experienced professionals to provide a greater depth of service to its clients, bringing together the best, most appropriate talent to solve client challenges. These professionals are the top in their field, and provide an enhanced support team for larger-scale projects.

And now NaTour Communications is partnering directly with sister company J2L Events LLC to organize a variety of trade and consumer events, summits, conferences and trade shows in any industry!

Adventure Business Consultants -- Marketing Development
Tim Warren – Founder/Director
Tourism Marketing • E-Marketing • Sales • Management • Operations • Business Strategist
25 years Business / Marketing Experience, with 10 years in Tourism Industry

Tim Warren and Adventure Business Consultants specialize in increasing arrivals, reducing expenses, increasing profits and creating effective action plans for nature tourism, ecotourism and adventure travel professionals. Tim has helped well over 100 tourism companies and agencies promoting tourism through his consulting, trainings, executive coaching and tourism professional development products. Notable nature tourism, ecotourism and adventure projects include: USAID – Mongolia: The Competitiveness Initiative, Baja AirVentures, Explore Bolivia, Eco Voyager, GreenTracks, NorthStar, Sea Kayak Adventures, Aquatels, Alaska Log Raft Adventures, Another Land, Panama Highlands Guest Hacienda, Austin’s Alaska Adventures and many others.

Tim is an adventurer, outdoor writer, tourism workshop trainer and author of “Tourism Marketing Material Success”. Tim is on the Board of Directors of the Outdoor Writers Association of California and a member of numerous nature conservation and tourism organizations. An international business major in college, Tim’s firm, based in Wine country, Northern California, is fun to work with, solves problems and can assemble the resources and roadmap to increase your arrivals, profits and success.

Deborah Richie Communications -- Interpretation and Writing
Deborah Richie Oberbillig -- Principal
Deborah Richie Oberbillig is the owner and sole proprietor of Deborah Richie Communications, specializing in interpretive writing and planning, as well as development of birding and nature trails, and wildlife viewing opportunities. She has worked in the interpretive field for 20 years, and has owned her business since 1996. Prior experience includes coordinating wildlife viewing programs for the U.S. Forest Service; Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; and The Nature Conservancy.

Deborah graduated from the University of Oregon in 1981 with a Bachelors degree in Biology and earned her Masters in Journalism in 1988 from the University of Montana. Through her consulting practice, Deborah has completed more than 100 projects for a wide variety of private, municipal, county, state, and federal agencies.

Eco-Tourism International -- Economics and Financial Analysis
Ed Sanders -- Principal
Ed Sanders has a broad policy analysis background in senior U.S. Government positions (OMB and U.S. Senate) and in private sector business management as an international business consultant. He is a former Vice-Chairman of the Board of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) and specializes in preparing market analyses, business plans, feasibility studies, and financing proposals for ecotourism and related conservation projects.

Great Destinotions -- Tourism Branding, Logos and Taglines
Eric Swartz -- President and Founder
Eric Swartz is president and founder of Great Destinotions, a branding agency dedicated to building, renovating, and promoting the brand identities of towns, regions and destination marketing organizations involved in promoting tourism, recreation and economic development. Projects include brand auditing, brand assessment and analysis, strategic positioning, message development, logo and tagline development, advertising, and direct response. Clients have included Tri-Valley, CA; Russian River Valley Winegrowers Association, CA; Longview, TX; and Marathon, FL; as well as American Express, Apple, Emory University, FedEx and Wells Fargo.

Eric has been a branding and marketing professional for more than 30 years on both the client and agency side. He started his career as an advertising copywriter, and worked as a grants writer and TV writer/producer (TravelTime) before serving in senior marketing and communications management positions at SPRINT, Ziff Communications, and The Thomson Corporation. He founded his agency in 1996. Eric is a recipient of a writing award from the Council for The Advancement and Support of Education, and has been featured in BusinessWeek.com, Meetings & Conventions Magazine, and USA Today. Eric earned his A.B. in Communication & Public Policy from U.C. Berkeley and his M.A. in Communications from The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Institute for Integrated Rural Tourism -- Rural and Community Tourism
Todd Comen -- Managing Director
Todd Comen is Managing Director of the Institute For Integrated Rural Tourism and an Associate Professor of Business and Hospitality Management at Johnson State College in Vermont. Professor Comen earned a Master's Degree from Cornell University in Hotel Administration and a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. His love for rural tourism began in 1982 with the development and operation of a small country inn on a farm in northern California. His experience in creating an agricultural tourist attraction at The Apple Works in Wisconsin and years of living on small farms raising crops and small farm animals, has given Professor Comen a keen sense of emerging opportunities for reinventing rural economies, invigorating rural cultures, and for weaving natural area protection into an overall rural tourism strategy.

Since 1989, Todd has combined research and the study of tourism and hospitality with his practical experience in operations to bring a non-traditional approach to consulting, workshops and courses on hospitality and tourism management. Courses and workshops cover a variety of topics relevant to rural and ecotourism including rural tourism product and infrastructure planning and development, marketing, ecotourism, and quality management of hospitality organizations. Recent research and workshop engagements have taken him to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Romania, Poland, Belarus, Honduras and Italy. He has worked with a variety of NGO’s as a tourism consultant including CHF International, Partners of the Americas and The Institute For Sustainable Communities. Professor Comen has developed a new strategy for rural economic development and poverty alleviation called Integrated Rural Tourism. His Institute for Integrated Rural Tourism offers leadership, research, consulting and educational programming to people interested in weaving low impact tourism into the economy of their community. A handbook will soon be available to help community members and entrepreneurs apply the lessons Professor Comen has learned over the past 25 years. The book, “Integrated Rural Tourism: Weaving Low-Impact Rural and Eco Tourism into the Economic Fabric of Rural Communities" is now available.

Kalahari Management -- Business and Market Analysis
Carol Patterson -- Principal
Carol Patterson is the founder of Kalahari Management. She is the author of several books including The Business of Ecotourism and publishes the quarterly newsletter, EcoTourism Management. Kalahari Management assists communities in developing their nature tourism potential. Recent projects include Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River birding and wildlife trail, and development of nature trails in Michigan's eastern upper peninsula. Kalahari Management also conducts assessments of nature tourism facilities and businesses. Communities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Michigan, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario have benefited from these reviews.

Carol has degrees in Business Administration, Economics and Geography, and holds a Certified Management Accountant Designation. In 1991 she was named Merit Winner in the Pannel Kerr Forster Research Award competition. She teaches recreation and tourism geography classes for the University of Calgary and is a judge for the Ecotourism Showcase awards presented annually at the Educational Learning Conference. She also serves on the board of Watchable Wildlife Inc.

Legitify -- Website Design, Digital Content Creation and Marketing
Mike McCarney, Partner
Legitify founder Mike McCarney began his internet marketing and website management career in 1998 when he co- founded WildernessWeb, an internet marketing service for outdoor adventure guides and ecotour operators. In less than two years Mike and his partner had developed an innovative service and successful business. As a chosen growth strategy, Wilderness Web was acquired by the naturalist.com network. After serving as VP of Ecotravel for Naturalist for one year, Mike went on to found his own web service company, Veat.Net in order to build upon his experience and pursue new opportunities. After four years of solid growth and managing over 100 active clients, Mike decided to blend web design, management and original content creation to build Legitify with partner Vince LaVecchia.

Legitify designs and manages complete websites, but they can also populate any site with words, photos, video and other creative content. Legitify offers solutions to the problem of developing and marketing original content for websites or any project.

LMW Design Inc. -- Graphic Design and Advertising
Laurie Musick Wright -- Principal
LMW Design founder and owner Laurie Musick Wright provides award-winning full-service marketing and advertising services to a diverse client base — from national publishing to banking, ecotourism to public utilities and health care —creating sophisticated presentations for all types of organizations. Laurie has also created collateral and web site design for many non-profit and civic organizations. She has more than 25 years of professional design experience and earned a B.S. in communication arts with a concentration in graphic arts from Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is a member of the Rutland (VT) Region Chamber of Commerce.

Her creative team offers a full range of strategic advertising and marketing services such as creative direction, art direction, graphic design, web design, corporate identity, communication strategies, copywriting, project management, and media planning. Her quality work has earned awards from American Business Communicators, the New England Society for Health Care Communications and numerous other professional organizations.

Seiler Design & Advertising -- Nature Tourism Graphic Design, Illustration and Advertising
Nancy Seiler -- Principal
Nancy L. Seiler, Interpretive Graphic Designer, has 26 years of graphic design experience. She has successfully run her own graphic design business for the last 19 years and in that role has been responsible for every aspect of the business from account representation, creative direction and marketing plans to the contracting of outside services such as photography, illustration, copywriting and printing. She has produced print jobs from one to 200 pages in length, coordinating these jobs from conception to completion. She is also a member of the National Association of Interpretation and frequently collaborates with Deborah Richie Oberbillig on interpretive projects. Nancy has a Visual Communications degree from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sugarhost Interactive, Inc. -- Website Design and Email Marketing Services
Joe Pymm -- Principal
Since 2004, Joe Pymm has designed websites for travel events and destinations, as well as offering email marketing services. Travel-based clients include the New York Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Adventure Travel Trade Association, Angel-Eco Tours and others.

top