Ryan's relationship with hotels began long before they became his career. Growing up, hotels represented escape, exploration and the excitement of being somewhere new. He was the kid who wanted to hold the room key, explore the conference floors and understand what was behind the doors most guests simply walked past.

Ryan began his hospitality career in 2005 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center while attending college, first learning the business from a call center beneath one of the largest convention resorts in the country. After graduating from TCU, he had the opportunity to pursue a career in advertising and public relations, but the pull of his hotel obsession was too great. When the opportunity to move into the world of meetings & events presented itself, Ryan took it, becoming a conference coordinator in 2010.

Over two decades, his career would take him through Gaylord Hotels, Marriott International and Loews Hotels & Co., and across nearly every side of the meetings and events business. Support roles grew into conference services management, which eventually led to catering sales in junior, senior and director-level roles—along the way mastering negotiation, strategy and leadership. Ryan discovered not only how hotels operate, but how they think: how business is evaluated, how decisions are made, where flexibility exists and who has the authority to make something happen.

Those experiences eventually placed him among some of the industry's strongest performers. While at Loews Hotels, Ryan became the brand's top-producing Catering Sales Manager. His work was also recognized closer to home when the Hotel Association of Tarrant County named him its 2024 Sales & Conference Services Manager of the Year, followed by the honor of being named one of the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce's 40 Under 40 in 2025.

The awards and achievements are meaningful. But the years behind them matter more.

Ryan has spent his career inside the conversations most clients never hear: revenue strategy, pricing, contract negotiations, event logistics, operations, leadership decisions and the countless judgment calls that determine how an event moves from a signed agreement to a ballroom full of people.

That perspective is what became Freefall, a meetings & events advisory firm.

Today, Ryan uses twenty years of hotel fluency to help clients navigate an industry they shouldn't be expected to understand as deeply as the people who work inside it. Not to work against hotels, but to work more effectively with them—to know what to ask, when to ask it, and how to lead the process with confidence.