Expert Resume/CV

Hotel & real estate industry disputes between owner-operator, lender-borrower, franchisor-franchisee. He has been providing market feasibility services, conducting strategic planning analysis, and appraising hotels and other hospitality-related real estate for twenty-five years. This expert is a nationally recognized expert in the field of hotel real estate consulting. He has been providing market feasibility services, conducting strategic planning analysis, and appraising hotels and other hospitality-related real estate for twenty-five years. His expertise includes advising clients on dispute resolution, development planning, deal structuring and financial issues related to hotel real estate development and investment. 

I am an expert in the field of hospitality and resort consulting. I have been providing litigation support services, conducting damage analyses, economic and financial analyses, market feasibility studies, and appraising hotels, restaurants, timeshares, resorts and other hospitality-related real estate for over thirty years. My expertise includes dispute resolution, expert witness testimony and advising clients on hotel leases, development planning, deal structuring, and financial issues related to hospitality development and investment.

My accomplishments include providing lease structuring, property valuation, market demand assessment, investment analysis, market repositioning, and acquisition and development advisory services to hundreds of clients. I have also been involved in resolving disputes, restructuring loans and other agreements, and working out troubled assets, including hotels, restaurants, timeshares, master-planned residential communities, and theme parks.

I have testified as an expert witness in venues including jury trials in California, Illinois, Florida and Texas Courts, several AAA- and JAMS-sponsored arbitration panels, Federal Bankruptcy Court, and mediations. My valuation expertise includes many unique assignments, such as one involving appraising the Grand Canyon, for which I was awarded the James Felt Creative Counseling Award by my peers in the Counselors of Real Estate. My experience as a hotel industry expert in disputes in the past few years involves more than 150 hotels, 20,000 hotel rooms, hundreds of timeshare units, five National Parks, and $2 billion of hotel assets.

Additionally, I have provided assistance to hospitality owners and landowners in the areas of negotiating ground and building leases, franchise agreements, management contracts, development agreements, financing arrangements, design-build agreements, tax-exempt bond financings and public-private partnership agreements.

As Principal with KPMG, I was the primary resource in the western U.S. for hospitality development, leasing and financing issues, particularly full-service urban and resort properties, including timeshare and fractional interval ownership, golf courses, spas and gaming.

I have conducted appraisals, workouts and/or market feasibility studies on hundreds of hospitality properties over the past thirty years, totaling over $12 billion in assets.

I have co-authored an article entitled “How to Value Commercial Improvements in a National Park” in the Winter 2000/Spring 2001 edition of Real Estate Issues; a chapter entitled “Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Hospitality Industry” in the textbook Hotel Investments: Issues and Perspectives, 4th edition (2006); a chapter entitled “Converting Existing Historic Buildings into Hotels” in the textbook Hotel Sustainable Development: Principals and Best Practices, 1st edition (2011); and an article entitled “Issue Review Boards™ – The Next Wave of Alternative Dispute Resolution for the Hospitality Industry”.

I am President of Maurice Robinson & Associates LLC, providing advisory services to investors and developers in the Hospitality and Real Estate industries. Prior to founding Maurice Robinson & Associates LLC in 1999, I was a Principal with KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, leading their western region Hospitality and Real Estate consulting practice for twelve years (1986-1998). Prior to KPMG, I was a Senior Consultant and Manager in the real estate and hospitality consulting practice of Pannell Kerr Forster (now PKF Consulting) for five years (1982-1986).  My previous work experience also includes three years as senior economist with the real estate consulting firm of Williams-Kuebelbeck and Associates (1979-1982), and a year as an independent consultant (1978). 

I hold a General Real Estate Appraisal certificate from the State of California; a master of public administration degree from the University of Southern California; a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota; a certificate of environmental management with a specialty in public/private partnerships from the Environmental Management Institute in Los Angeles; and a professional designation in financial planning from UCLA.

I have completed training in arbitration, both as a panel member and chairperson, with the Financial Industry National Regulatory Authority (FINRA), as well as with the Institute of Conflict Management (ICM), and have been selected to serve as an Arbitrator for FINRA, ICM and the American Arbitration Association (AAA). In seven of my recent arbitrations, I served as the Chairperson of the three-member panels. I am also a trained and experienced Mediator, having completed Mediation Training courses by the L. A. County Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Services and ICM, and successfully mediated numerous hospitality and real estate-related cases.

I am a frequent lecturer at various real estate and hospitality industry-related seminars and conferences across the United States, and have spoken more than two dozen times at national and local hospitality industry conferences. I was the editor of KPMG’s Hospitality Update newsletter in the mid-1990s, and served on the Program Planning Committee of the annual UCLA Hotel Industry Investment Conference (now ALIS) for six years. I am also an annual Guest Lecturer at UC Berkeley’s MBA program’s Haas School of Real Estate.

I am a member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC), where I was the Chairman of the Professional Conduct Committee and served on the Board of Directors for nine years. Other professional memberships include the Counselors of Real Estate (CRE), the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), and the Forensic Expert Witness Association (FEWA). I am also a member of the Board of Arbitrators for the Financial Industry National Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Dispute Resolution.

The offices of Maurice Robinson & Associates LLC are located at 28 Dover Place, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266.  Telephone: 310-640-9656.  Fax: 310-640-9276.  Cell: 310-713-3220;    E-mail: Maurice@MauriceRobinson.com. Web site: www.MauriceRobinson.com.