John Melicharek

Biography: July 2008 John Melicharek, Jr., is the Baker &Hostetler LLP Hospitality Industry Team Leader and has been advising clients for over twenty years on business and transactional matters. He maintains a diverse real estate and business practice with a strong emphasis on resorts, hotels and the travel and leisure industry. He regularly counsels clients regarding hotel and resort acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, complex financing transactions, raising capital, franchising, leasing, licensing and securities matters. As a member of the Hospitality Industry Team, Mr. Melicharek has developed substantial experience in hotel and timeshare resort development, drafting and negotiating franchise,license and management agreements and project structuring. He also regularly assists clients with construction and working capital financing, including securitization transactions. Mr. Melicharek has negotiated exchange company agreements and vacation club affiliation agreements and participated in new product development and transaction structuring for many major hospitality industry clients. He has recently been actively involved in the structuring of numerous condominium hotel transactions, including both purpose built projects and conversions of existing hotel properties to condotels. Mr. Melicharek is a member of the American, Florida and New Jersey State Bar Associations and is actively involved in the Urban Land Institute-Recreational Development Council and the Organization for Timeshare in Europe. Mr. Melicharek is a member of the Board of Directors of the Orlando-Orange County Convention and Visitors Bureau. He has lectured on such topics as raising capital, loan participations, mixed-use development, acquisition financing, timeshare legal issues, condominium hotels and starting a new business.