Julian is our CEO, and the founder of VacationRoost. Julian is passionate about the vacation rental industry, and has built a team that shares his vision for building the leading online marketplace for vacation rentals. A veteran media executive with more than 18 years of senior-level operating experience and a world-class institutional background, Julian is also the CEO of Castles Media Company.

Before founding VacationRoost, Julian served as Chief Financial Officer of Primedia, a $300 million Internet media company that owns and operates leading brands: Apartment Guide/Apartmentguide.com, New Home Guide/Newhomeguide.com, Auto Guide/Autoguide.com, and Rentals.com. While at Primedia, Julian also served as President of the Autoguide.com business, and he was also responsible for the launch and development of Rentals.com.

Julian previously served as CFO of PageNet, a $1 billion public telecom company. He also was a founder and managing director of Cabrillo Advisors, a boutique financial advisory firm. Julian began his career as an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs and Co. in 1990, later serving as a strategy consultant with McKinsey and Company. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Amherst College.

George leads our sales, back-office and financial teams. He brings more than 20 years of senior-level executive experience in finance, accounting, operations, and sales and marketing to VacationRoost. He is also a founding member of the Castles Media team.

Prior to VacationRoost and Castles Media, George was Director of Finance with Nokia Inc. Enterprise Solutions business group, with global financial responsibility for the ES Sales and Marketing group. While at Nokia, George led Six Sigma projects, winning national and global awards and becoming a Six Sigma Certified Green Belt, making him a master at identifying and removing causes and defects of the business process.

George has held senior-level controller, director, and manager roles at GTE (Verizon) and ILD Telecommunications. His experience includes IPO filings, SEC filings and acquisitions. He has had extensive international business experience, having worked in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and China.

George has an MBA from Southern Methodist University and a BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jim Barsch joined VacationRoost in 2009 and brings with him more than 20 years of experience in the travel and tourism industry. Jim leads our relationships and business development efforts with the Travel Agent community. In addition, he is responsible for working with VacationRoost partners in developing affiliate and white label relationships.

Jim’s love, expertise and passion for travel have fueled his leadership in a number of companies. He has held executive positions with The Mark Travel Corporation, Pleasant Holidays, Morris Murdock Travel and other nationally recognized tour wholesalers. He has lead company start up and merger / acquisition implementations. Additionally he has been heavily involved in the technological transformation of several companies in the travel industry over the past 20 years.

He holds a Bachelors of Science in Travel & Tourism from Brigham Young University.

Maile is the chief steward of VacationRoost's brand and is responsible for ensuring our customer experience is exceptional at every point. Her department includes the Customer Experience, Marketing, and Customer Acquisition teams. Maile is an entrepreneur and seasoned executive with broad experience in sales and marketing. She gained valuable work experience at WordPerfect and Novell, where she was part of the rapid growth of both companies. 

In 2003 Maile left the technology sector to found Fashionable Fundraising, a company that assists non-profit organizations in raising money.  She enjoys helping non-profit organizations and currently sits on the board of directors at the Work Activity Center in Salt Lake City.  Upon returning to the technology industry, she served as vice president of marketing for Alianza and in sales and marketing roles at Allegiance and WiLife (Logitech), as well as co-founding Lava7, a social media marketing agency.

Her favorite marketing wins include product placement on Good Morning America and USA Today Best Tech of 2006.  Maile has been named as one of 30 Women to Watch in Utah, selected as a v100 entrepreneur, as well as winning the SBA Women in Business Champion award.

Maile holds an English degree from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Rob Michalik, Chairman -- Board of Directors

Rob is a founder and Managing Director of Kinderhook Industries, a $470 million private equity firm based in New York City. Rob and his partners have completed more than 50 Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance transactions, investing more than $1 billion throughout their investment careers, and have partnered with Castles Media to build VacationRoost. Rob is also a Director of Raleigh Cycle Ltd., Perrin Manufacturing Company, Lodis Accessories, Inc., EAM Corporation and Trubiquity.

Cor Carruthers, Director

Cor is a Principal at Kinderhook Industries and has had a distinguished career in investment banking and private equity. Cor played a key role in getting VacationRoost started through the acquisition of OTravel in 2007. Cor also serves on the Board of Directors of KN Rubber, Nurse-On-Call and Mastro's Restaurants.

Elan Blutinger, Director

Elan has led the successful launch, IPO, and sale of two well-known travel companies: Travel Services International and ResortQuest International. He subsequently was a Director at Hotels.com and chaired the special committee that sold the company to IAC/ InterActiveCorp. He is currently a Director of Great Wolf Resorts.

Michael Sands, Director

Michael is a former senior executive at Orbitz Worldwide. He served as Chief Marketing Officer from the company's formation, launch, and IPO. He then was COO following the company's sale to Cendant in 2004 through its spin off to Blackstone in 2006. Previously, he held senior marketing positions at General Motors, Giant Step, and Leo Burnett. A career marketing executive, Michael advised United Airlines during the launch of UAL.com.