When two formidable travel organisations came together five years ago to create the Meyer-Franklin Travel team, Patti Daly Franklin was at the helm as president of the newly merged company.

It was, she recalled, a big decision that was only made possible by the hard work and dedication of the staff to service excellence.

Ms Daly Franklin has since left Bermuda to make a home for her and her son Tyler in California.

However in a letter to Meyer-Franklin, congratulating them on their fifth anniversary, Ms Daly Franklin praised the team on their successes over the last five years, adding that the company should be proud of all its accomplishments:

"For leading the way in the Bermuda travel industry, for dealing with your customers with honesty and integrity, and for continually showing what it takes to be a team of truly dedicated travel professionals."

She added that both companies were started because their founders had a vision of offering extraordinary customer service within the travel industry and felt customers have reacted positively over the last five years.

Proof of this, she said, was in the strong and solid relationships between the Meyer-Franklin team and their customers.

"This didn't happen by accident. It happened because of the thousands of positive service interactions that each of you carefully completed — from greeting cards, to answering the phone, to making the reservation, delivering the itinerary, printing the statements, preparing the accounts — everyone working together to make sure each customer's business trip or vacation matches their exact requirements."

Ms Daly Franklin, a native Californian, spent 14 years with the Xerox Corporation in the US before moving to Bermuda in 1987.

She went to work for AF Smith as general manager, but in 1993 she left to start her own business. At the time she as in partnership with Vaughn Mosher at Performance Consultants.

When her husband Buddy died in 1995 she took over Franklin Travel and even though she had her own business, her first loyalty was to the travel agency her husband had started.