Golden, a real estate executive and former Reagan administration official, as president and chief executive.

Golden, who also will join the hotelier's board, will assume the posts on September 1. He will succeed Stephen F. Bollenbach, who left in April to become senior executive vice president and chief financial officer at Walt Disney Co.

"Terry has outstanding experience in real estate and capital markets and has the background to successfully guide our company in the years ahead,'' said Richard E. Marriott, chairman of the Bethesda, Maryland-based company.

Host Marriott's stock closed unchanged at 11 5/8. The company operates Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort.

Golden, 55, worked under former President Ronald Reagan as an assistant Treasury secretary and administrator of the General Services Administration, which handles the maintenance and leasing of federal property and the purchase of goods and services for the government.

He is chairman of Washington-based Bailey Realty Corp., a company he created to work on real estate restructurings and refinancings.

He was formerly a managing partner at Trammell Crow Residential Cos. and chief financial officer at Oliver Carr Co., an office building developer.

Host Marriott owns about 100 hotels nationwide that are managed by Marriott International Inc.

People who work with Golden said the quiet, persistent executive should quickly master the nuances of dealing in hotel real estate.

Peers also described him as an outstanding negotiator in an industry known for its tough-minded personalities.

He's "not the type to look to have his name in the paper all the time,'' but he's "a real leader, has a real feel for people and the markets, and he's a tough negotiator,'' said James L. Eichberg, chairman of Smithy Braedon/ONCOR International, a Washington, D.C.-based commercial real estate services firm.

Eichberg was a member of the District of Columbia Public Education Committee when Golden served as chairman.

"You can't take on some of the roles he's had, like turning around the education system here, without some smarts,'' Eichberg said.

Golden's knowledge of the real estate business and his ability to negotiate financing for new properties more than offset his limited experience working with hotels, said Arthur Adler, a hotel consulting partner at Coopers & Lybrand.

"I assume he's not going to get down to property-level operational issues,'' Adler said. "Host has lots of people who know how to do that.'' Golden, who acknowledged he doesn't know a lot about hotels, said he had some contact with them through investments made by his previous employers. He said he owned a stake in a Puerto Rican Marriott in the early 1970s. "I've got some learning to do as it relates to hotels,'' he said.

Host Marriott was created in the October 1993 split of Marriott Corp. into separate hotel real estate and hotel management companies.

Golden said he doesn't see any need to change the company's strategy. Host Marriott on Wednesday announced plans to spin off its business running food and merchandise concessions at toll-road rest stops, airports and stadiums. It is selling its limited- service hotels and plans to focus on the acquisition of full-service hotels, a faster-growing and more profitable business. "My sense is (Host Marriott is) going in a good direction,'' he said. "My job is to coordinate that effort.'' The company will consider expanding into the Pacific Rim because that's "clearly the area where the hotel industry is growing fastest outside the US,'' he said. It hasn't made any commitments yet because there are plenty of good hotels to buy in the US, he said.