Cortiva Group Appoints Chief Operating Officer; Cortiva Group Announces Addition of Henry Gonzalez.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 2004

Cortiva Group, the pioneer and leader in the development and implementation of the country's first "spa services network" in the United States, announced today that Henry Gonzalez, former President of McDonald's East Division, has joined Cortiva Group as Chief Operating Officer. The announcement was made today by Mr. Alan Clingman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cortiva Group.

"I am extremely pleased to welcome to Cortiva a professional of Henry's caliber and talent," said Mr. Clingman. "The fact that we could attract an accomplished executive such as Henry to our young company is evidence of the compelling business model we have created and the early momentum that has already developed with premier customers."

Cortiva Group has launched the first "spa services network" of uniformed, highly trained, professional massage therapists in the United States, and is establishing an unprecedented benchmark of excellence in educational standards, practices and techniques for an industry that lacks both a systematic and qualitative approach.

In 2003, the U.S. spa industry revenues exceeded $14 billion, making spa visits America's third most popular leisure pastime, following golf and health club activities. However, hotels and spas across the country have been unable to meet the customer demand, limiting the growth potential of the industry. Cortiva Group was established as a result of staffing inefficiencies in the spa industry and the need for a third-party to service the burgeoning industry by matching supply and demand on a large scale and by raising standards of education, practices and techniques.

"Cortiva Group represents enormous business potential and I look forward to applying my thirty odd years of operational expertise in this exciting new field. I value the opportunity to work with like-minded industry leaders to build a scalable backend and to roll the Cortiva service out rapidly on a national scale," said Mr. Gonzalez. "McDonald's has been at the forefront of developing scalable and replicable systems and methods that save time and money while maintaining consistency and high service levels. I look forward to applying my working knowledge of such systems to Cortiva Group."

Prior to joining Cortiva Group, Mr. Gonzalez served in various senior management positions at McDonald's Corporation over the last three decades, ultimately serving as President of the company's East Division, the largest division of McDonald's in the world. As President, Mr. Gonzalez was responsible for 40% of U.S. business with annual sales of $8.2 billion in 5,200 restaurants. He oversaw 1,000 franchisees and a corporate office staff of 75. He was involved in restaurant development - including brand-building through partner brands and acquisitions - business research, marketing and key service strategies that increased the strength of the McDonald's brand on the East Coast and elsewhere in the U.S.

From 1994-1995, Mr. Gonzalez served as Corporate Vice President of Operations, where he was responsible for all operations and training departments in the U.S., along with new product premiers and procedures. Again he seized the opportunity to surpass all financial targets and continued to improve upon the operational excellence of McDonald's Corporation.

Mr. Gonzalez began his career with McDonald's as a Management Trainee in 1973 and was quickly identified as one of the most talented and motivated self-starters in the fast-food industry. Ten years later, the first McDonald's restaurants in Bangkok and Taiwan launched successfully under Mr. Gonzalez's coordination as Staff Director of Operations in Southeast Asia. Over the next ten years, he grew the company's Hartford regional sales to over $600 million, overseeing 350 restaurants and establishing a new office as the District Manager.

During his tenure at McDonald's Corporation, Mr. Gonzalez won the company's top awards, including the McDonald's Alpha Award, the McDonald's President's Award - which is senior management's highest honor for employee performance - and the Excellence Award from National Black McDonald's Operators Association.

About Cortiva Group

At Cortiva Group, our mission is to create efficiency in the highly fragmented, $14 billion spa industry by becoming a trusted and branded third party provider of scalable services. Cortiva will achieve this goal by building a national network of uniformed, highly trained, professional massage therapists that will be made available anytime, anywhere to hotels, health clubs, spas, country clubs and hospitals both on a contract basis and on a just-in-time basis, with as little as 90 minutes notice, 24 x 7; to enable every hotel room to become a "virtual treatment room"; to establish the most rigorous set of standards and practices for massage therapists; to acquire, operate and manage schools of massage therapists under a national brand that will provide, for the first time, a foundation for continued growth in the industry and will be at the forefront of training leaders for years to come; and to develop superior, branded products for use in massage therapy and body treatments. We view ourselves as a critical competitive advantage for businesses in the spa, hospitality and health care industries, both in terms of excellent service and profitability, by providing these services on a more qualitative, cost effective and omnipresent basis than the industries could do themselves.