Architecture and design firm Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, Newport Beach, hired veteran hospitality consultant Jim Burba to the newly created position of worldwide director of advisory services. Burba, co-founder and chair of UCLA Extension’s Annual Hotel Industry Investment Conference, the companion Latin America & Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Investment Forum and the International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin, was most recently senior managing director at Insignia/ESG Hotel Partners in Newport Beach.
WATG said the addition will help provide a wider range of services to clients, including investment strategies, market feasibility studies, hotel management company selection and negotiation, due diligence studies, tourism plans and asset and portfolio management, among others.
“It will be fascinating to take their projects further,” said Burba. “They have such a good reputation and such intriguing projects.”
Burba said he will “absolutely” continue his involvement with the hospitality conferences. The South Laguna Beach resident is a member of the board of trustees of the Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Motel Association and the International Society of Hospitality Consultants. He is a graduate of the School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University and earned his MBA from UCLA.
Burba, who is single, admitted he devotes little time to hobbies, but is a fan of college football and golf, though he called himself a “poor” golfer.
“I don’t go out enough,” he said.
WATG ranked No. 2 on the most recent Business Journal list of OC architectural firms with $22 million in Orange County billings for the period ended June 30, 1999. The firm, originally based in Honolulu, first came to OC to work on the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel. It also counts the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach and the proposed Newport Dunes Resort among its local projects.
