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Steve Yencich
President & CEO

Steve has served as staff director for MLTA, formerly known as MHMRA, since the fall of 2000 and came to the association after 15 years of service to the Michigan Association of Insurance Agents. In 2003, Steve was presented the "Outstanding Achievement in Michigan Tourism Award" by Governor Jennifer Granholm for MHMRA's efforts in helping to prevent a 30% cut in Travel Michigan's budget. In 2005, MHMRA created a broad coalition of parents and industry groups called Parents for Family Vacation which, thanks to volunteer support from all tourism segments, led to passage of legislation requiring all state schools to open after Labor Day. Later that same year, MHMRA facilitated industry-wide support for passage of an amendment to the 21st Century Jobs Fund that provided an additional $15 million in funding for Travel Michigan.

In 2006, Travel Michigan, and Michigan State University merged Michigan's annual Tourism Conference, and MSU's annual Tourism Outlook Conference into MHMRA's annual convention. The Michigan Lodging & Tourism Conference, "Driving Tourism" has grown to become the largest gathering of tourism industry leaders from across the state. Later in 2006, the association created Tourism Improving Michigan's Economy, (TIME). The objective of this broad-based coalition is to increase state funding for tourism promotion without tax or assessment increase. Steve believes that a stronger tourism industry boosts business travel, economic development and automatically increases occupancy levels and outcomes for Michigan lodging properties.