jlast@sportsandleisureresearch.com

With over 20 years of management experience, Jon Last is founder and President of Sports and Leisure Research Group, a White Plains, NY based full service marketing research consultancy that supports leading brands in sports marketing, travel, media and leisure categories as well as a host of golf, travel and consumer product company clients.

Jon’s previous experience includes more than seven years as Vice President of Corporate Marketing, Research and Brand Development for Conde Nast’s Golf Digest Publications division. At GDP, Last and his team built a full service marketing research, relationship marketing and strategy firm that was leveraged to drive over $30 million of advertising revenue annually and emerged as a leader in supporting marketers in golf and travel.

Prior to leading the Golf Digest Publications marketing efforts, Last served in senior marketing and strategic planning roles within the leisure and sports industries. At the PGA of America, Jon developed and managed all marketing research, including initiating the All About Golf series of consumer segmentation studies that received national attention in The Wall Street Journal and American Demographics. Jon also oversaw marketing and retailing activities surrounding the PGA Championship, Ryder Cup Matches and PGA Golf Expositions. Jon has also overseen loyalty marketing, E-business, marketing research and product management for a leading cruise line.

A frequent speaker at national industry conferences and a recognized expert in the golf, travel and media research space, Jon Last currently serves on the national boards of directors for Marketing Research Institute International (MRII), The Executive Women's Golf Association (EWGA), Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR) and is immediate past president of the Marketing Research Associaton (MRA). He received MRA's national Award of Excellence in 2004.

Last holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University.

Mr. Van Brunt has been involved with quantitative marketing research since 1974. He began doing marketing research while employed by U.S. News & World Report where he was involved with subscriber surveys, readership surveys, and proprietary surveys for major advertisers.

Following U.S.News he spent a year working for Standard Information Systems where he taught clients how to use the company’s database and statistical systems.

In 1976 he joined Action Surveys, Inc. as Vice President. During his 6 years at Action Surveys he took the company from being a simple provider of data processing services to one which provided full service research. During this period he became one of the founders of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of MRA (Marketing Research Association), and served as the second president of the chapter. He left Action Survey in 1981 and with two partners formed National Research, Inc. a 40 station telephone interviewing facility. He sold the company one year later to his partners, and in 1982 started his own company, Re Data.

In 1986 he started another corporation, Pros & Cons, Inc., to market a computer program he developed, PCPUNCH. PCPUNCH is still being used for volume data entry on PC's, and is particularly well suited for entry of survey questionnaires. The program is utilized worldwide, has powerful data editing and validation capabilities, and is capable of producing data in a variety of output formats.

Over the years, Mr. Van Brunt has been an active volunteer in the Marketing Research Association. He was one of the founding members of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the MRA, served as the second Chapter President, and remained active on the Chapter Board for a number of years. At the National level, he has served on numerous Councils, Committees, and Task Forces. He is a past Chair of the Professional Development Council and the Information Resources Council, served as a member of the Technology Council, served on the National Board of Directors as a Director at Large, and was elected national President of the Marketing Research Association for the year 2002-2003. He was instrumental in MRA starting Professional Research Certification, and he currently chairs the Review Committee for Researcher Certification. He is PRC certified at the Expert Level. In 2006 he was presented with MRA’s Honorary Lifetime Membership Award.

He holds a BS in Mathematics from Bucknell University.

Michael Mermelstein’s 20+ years of leadership in the marketing research profession has included experience across a broad spectrum of companies, including:

	»		Mktg, Inc
	»		EMC, where he was the company representative to IriS, an international alliance of research companies
	»		Field Facts Worldwide, an international research company.
	»		Communications Center, Inc. (CCI)
	»		Peter D. Hart Research Associates.

As President of G2 & Associates, LLC, a full service opinion and market research firm specializing in qualitative research (focus group moderation and in-depth interviewing, as well as discussion guide development, notes, summaries and/or report writing), field management and quantitative research, Mermelstein’s business, cultural and social acumen combined with his research experience allows him to translate what he learns; showing how the words and ideas from participants on a given project and then relate to the big picture for the client. This results in deep, actionable insights which help his clients reach their objectives.

As a leader of the research profession he has served as Past President of the Marketing Research Association (MRA), the nation’s largest association of market research companies, where he currently serves as Chair of the Advisory Board. He is a recipient of the MRA’s Distinguished Service Award. He also is currently Co-Chair of the Government Relations Committee at the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR) and serves on its Board of Directors. He is also a member of the Board of Directors for the Marketing Research Institute International (MRII), a distance learning program for the survey and opinion research profession offered through the University of Georgia.

Mermelstein received his BA from the State University College of New York at Oneonta where he majored in History and Political Science.