ST. LOUIS, Mo. – UMA Motorcoach Expo 2017 will feature a guest speaker from one of the best-known companies in host city St. Louis and another who will offer insight into a business model that is sure to affect the motorcoach industry in the coming years.
Expo’s opening speaker will be Tom Kraus, group director, heritage marketing, at Anheuser-Busch InBev. The Expo luncheon speaker will be Josh Mohrer, general manager of Uber New York City. Kraus has been with Anheuser-Busch since 1996 and assumed his current position two years ago.
He oversees four of the beer giant’s corporate businesses: brewery tours, biergartens, the iconic Clydesdales and Grant’s Farm, the 281-acre ancestral home of the Busch family that has been a popular St. Louis destination since 1954. He led the company’s most successful Super Bowl ad campaign, which won a USA Today Ad Meter Award.
Kraus’s other positions at Anheuser-Busch have included director of Budweiser brand marketing, senior brand manager for Bud Light Mega Brand, brand manager for Rolling Rock and LandShark, group manager for consumer marketing, manager of sales promotion, and manager of national retail sales.
Kraus will speak during the UMA Expo opening session on Monday morning, Feb. 27. That evening, attendees will visit Anheuser-Busch for the Expo Sneak Preview After Party.
Mohrer, who will speak at the UMA luncheon on Monday, oversees Uber’s New York metropolitan-area business. He joined Uber in 2012 shortly after the company began expanding outside of San Francisco.
His topic should be of special interest to members of the motorcoach industry as the growing ride-sharing model in general, and Uber in particular, change the outlook for the entire transportation industry.
Companies such as Uber and Lyft already have spurred private companies to offer on-demand van and bus services to commuters in several cities. That, in turn, has caused public-transit agencies to begin experimenting with similar options, and the practice is expected to expand into the motorcoach industry as passengers seek greater flexibility.
