Subject: PRESS RELEASE - For Release 7/25/97 - Disney
From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 18:24:12 -0400 (EDT)

PRESS RELEASE - For Release 7/25/97
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF 
GAY & LESBIAN MEETING PROFESSIONALS
Jim Luce, National Coordinator -  [email-masked]
175 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2172, New York, N.Y. 10010
212-388-0588; fax 212-388-0681

Press Conference in Chicago 7/28
DISNEY NAMED “CORP. OF THE YEAR”
New York — The International Society of Gay & Lesbian Meeting 
Professionals (ISGLMP) will announce in a press conference at the
Regal Knickerbocker Hotel, at 163 East Walton Place, Executive 
Board Room, 2nd Fl., on Monday, July 28, 2:00 pm, their decision to 
award the Walt Disney Corporation ISGLMP’s “Corporation of the 
Year” Award.

President and National Coordinator Jim Luce states, 
“This is a milestone for ISGLMP to focus our attention on those 
corporations in the industry who have made such efforts to be gay-
indifferent.”  “Truly, Disney is both gay-indifferent and the epitome of 
traditional family values,” states Luce.

The ISGLMP National Advisory Board has ratified the following
resolution:

“Resolved, that The Walt Disney Corporation is hereby deemed by the 
Board of Directors of the International Society of Gay & Lesbian 
Meeting Professionals, as the ‘Corporation of the Year’ for 1997 for 
their gay-friendly environment, their corporate policy of offering health 
benefits to partners of gay employees, “Gay Days” offered at their 
theme parks, and the non-judgmental content of their TV and film 
programming.  Be it further resolved that, having grown up with the 
Magic Kingdom, we affirm that Walt Disney is the epitome of traditional 
family values.”

The Society comprises approximately 475 members from coast to 
coast, including Canada and overseas.  The combined total worth of 
meetings scheduled by ASGLMP members is estimated to be over 
$47 million annually.  The Society was created in 1996 to fill the need 
of networking with lesbian and gay counterparts in the meeting 
planning arena.  Towards this end it publishes a monthly electronic 
newsletter, available by e-mail, and is creating its web-site and 
compiling its first National Directory of members and gay-friendly 
locations to be published next fall.  Funding for the group will come 
from dues and corporate sponsorship.

ISGLMP National Advisory Board members include meeting planners 
from the association arena from medical groups (incl. psychiatry, 
rheumatology and urology), industry groups (incl. expo management, 
conference centers), and general (incl. mechanical engineers, 
university women, legal administrators, new directors and AIDS 
leaders).  Corporate meeting planners include American Express, 
Lotus, NYCE and Smith Barney.  On the suppler-side, hotel personnel 
chosen are from Hilton and El San Juan; airlines include American and 
United, and CVB’s and convention centers represent Baltimore and 
Philadelphia in the East, Columbus, Detroit and Phoenix in the middle, 
and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland in the West.

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