Michelle’s hotel career began in the spring of 1990.  After working her way through various hotel operational and sales positions Michelle found herself in Houston in 2005, working with a New Orleans based company who’d relocated their operations after Hurricane Katrina.  Through that experience, she created what is now Continuity Housing’s proprietary program to contractually guarantee hotel rooms for critical personnel without having to buy them outright.

In June 2006 she joined ConferenceDirect, a meetings management company, and was soon recognized for booking record-breaking revenue and creating innovative hotel contracts for corporate business continuity programs. She was honored for these efforts as the 2006 Rookie of the Year at their Annual Partner Meeting in Chicago and has consistently been recognized as a top performer.

From 2010 to 2014, Michelle led a team of 29 associates during the Deepwater Horizon incident. She put boots on the ground at incident command centers along the Gulf Coast and secured accommodations for thousands of individuals involved with the incident and restoration effort. Michelle’s team negotiated contracts with 72 hotels in nine cities and monitored each hotel’s performance and compliance every day for the duration of the response.  Her outstanding leadership on the project earned her ConferenceDirect’s Alliance Award in 2011.

Although Michelle’s business continuity program has helped clients since 2006, her experience on the Deepwater Horizon project led her to see the market need for a company that specializes in housing and logistics assistance for companies affected by disasters. She founded Continuity Housing to expand her reach and more sharply focus her service offering.

Michelle’s expertise in business continuity housing, conference planning and hotel contracting have made her a sought-after resource and a popular speaker. She is based in Austin, Texas.