Key Team Members

The team approach embodied by Prestige Accommodations allows you to always have a point-of-contact senior meeting planner who understands your program at all times. In addition, other members of the staff; meeting planners, assistant and junior meeting planners as well as clerical, are involved with the planning, design, implementation and management of all aspects of your meeting.

Steven Marlin
President and Owner

Prior to starting Prestige Accommodations in 1979, Steve had a career in retail for 10 years. Having received a Doctorate from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor's degree from UCLA, he started his retail business in 1971 and successfully built a four-store chain during that period of time. Up to and during that period, Steve had been extremely active in numerous professional and trade organizations of which he was often involved in the meeting planning aspect of their conventions. In 1979, deciding to make a career change, he successfully sold his retail outlets and after months of planning and studying, developed a concept and implemented Prestige Accommodations. At that time, independent meeting planners were practically unheard of. Throughout the years, with his leadership, Prestige Accommodations has grown and flourished. Presently, we have approximately 30 clients, both corporations and associations. Steve has often been recognized as a leader in the field and has been asked to speak at numerous meeting planning association gatherings, has taught food and beverage at the ASAE Management Conference and served on the advisory boards for Centerplate, a national provider of food and beverage services to convention centers and sports facilities nationwide. The Hospitality Industry recognizes Steve as a tough, but fair representative of his clients and one who brings to the negotiating table a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the hotel industry, as well as the needs of his clients.

Barbara L. Klemm
Senior Meeting Planner

Barbara has been with Prestige Accommodations for 17 years where she has been responsible for negotiating contracts with hotels and vendors, coordinating logistical arrangements and on-site supervision of clients' annual conferences.

Barb works with clients in planning and budgeting, as well as committees and volunteers in all stages of conference arrangements. She currently works with clients whose conferences range from 350 to 9,000 attendees. Prior to joining Prestige, Barbara headed a five-person conference department with an association in the Midwest for 16 years, overseeing 19 annual meetings ranging from 35 to 2,400 attendees.

Laurie Ybarra
Meeting Planner

Laurie has over twenty years of meeting planning experience handling a wide variety of conventions and events for both corporate and association clients. Laurie started her meeting planning career with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. For twelve years, she handled their 6,500 person annual convention, as well as additional specialty conferences. From there, she went to an independent meeting planning company for six years, managing all aspects of meeting planning for various clients with meetings ranging from 40-2,000 people. This gave Laurie experience working with corporate groups and incentives as well as associations. Laurie started with Prestige in 2004 and has been planning meetings for both corporate and association clients. Her conventions range in size from 1,000 to 4,500 people.

Laurie obtained her AA Degree at Pasadena City College and completed the Meeting Planners Certificate Program at California State University, Long Beach in 1992.

Sara Parrell
Meeting Planner

Sara has over 15 years of experience in the entertainment, event and meeting planning industries. In the entertainment industry, Sara has worked for Disneyland as an entertainment supervisor coordinating in-park character events and at Twentieth Century Fox coordinating a multi-million dollar Simpsons' event and promotions campaign on the studio backlot. She then transitioned her event knowledge into meeting planning and began working for an independent meeting planning company. It was there that she managed large scale incentive programs with budgets large and small in locations around the world including the coordination of marketing materials, travel arrangements, team building and optional activities and evening celebrations. She has planned large fiestas on the beaches of Mexico, gala events at wineries in Napa Valley, Cuban celebrations in Miami and red carpet movie screenings in Hollywood.

In 2007, Sara began working for Prestige Accommodations where she not only manages the incentive programs, but has a large role in planning the various conferences.

Sara received her BA in Public Relations from California State University, Fullerton.

Jenny Carson
Meeting Coordinator

Jenny has been with Prestige Accommodations for a year and a half as the Meeting Coordinator. Her background is with various positions in the hospitality industry. She worked as a Conference Services Manager at San Diego State University; Sales Assistant at the Four Seasons Newport Beach; Catering Manager at the Westin Innisbrook in Tampa, FL; and as a Meeting Planner for R&R Healthcare Communications.

Her previous experience in the hospitality industry has provided a solid foundation for her position at Prestige where she plans various smaller scale meetings and provides support to the senior planners on the larger meetings.

Trinh Vu
Registration Manager

Trinh came to Prestige 3 years ago. Originally a Loan Processer in the mortgage industry, she developed exceptional customer service skills and the ability to juggle multiple accounts at the same time. Now as the Registration Manager, she puts both those skills to work as she manages the registration (both online and on-site) portion of the meetings.

From the planning stage to the final wrap-up, Trinh is involved in every detail to ensure that attendees receive the attention they need to get the most benefit from the meetings they attend.