Bill Oates has joined the board of directors of Passkey, an online group reservations management firm. The former senior vice president and chief information officer of Starwood Hotels & Resorts will head Passkey's technology committee.

A past chairman of the American Hotel & Lodging Association's technology and telecommunications committees, Oates is the youngest inductee ever selected for the Hospitality Finance and Technology Professionals (HFTP) International Technology Hall of Fame.

In other HFTP news, long-time industry consultants Jon Inge and John Burns have joined Oates in that HFTP Tech Hall of Fame. Inge, who has a master's degree in engineering from Oxford University, specializes in PMS. He has worked for NCR and Westin and established his own hospitality technology consultancy, Jon Inge and Associates, in 1996.

Burns, a Canadian native, is president of Hospitality Technology Consulting and specializes in electronic distribution. He worked for Hyatt, Ramada and Pegasus Solutions predecessor THISCO.

Meanwhile, at Pegasus, Mike Kistner has been named chief operating officer. Since he joined the company from Best Western International in 2005 as senior vice president of operations and technology, Kistner has lowered the number of product defects-and lowered the cost, the company says.

In another move, Debbie Leander has left her position as vice president of product management at Daylight Software to form Turning Stone Software. Turning Stone aims to provide software design and development contract services to technology vendors and their customers. The website is turningstoneinc.com.