Former Premier president copes with aftermath of bankruptcy

(Park Record) In 2008 Barbara Zimonja was at the top of her game. She was inducted into the David Eccles School of Business Hall of Fame and she was President and CEO of Premier Resorts International, a property management firm that handled 2,500 units in nine states. In Park City, where her company was headquartered, she sat on numerous community boards and was known as a generous employer who had built a small cleaning company into one of the area's biggest and most respected lodging firms.

By the end of 2009 her business was in ruins.

Since Premier Resorts of Utah was forced into involuntary bankruptcy, she says that she has lost everything, including 50 pounds on a five-foot, one-inch frame.

On her darkest days, Zimonja says she blames herself for the entire catastrophe in which as many as 2,000 employees across the country (600 to 700 in Park City) lost their jobs, hundreds of property owners went unpaid and her family lost all of the money they had invested in her success.

On better days, she sees that her demise was caused by a perfect storm of financial crises, some of which she could, and perhaps should have, avoided and others that were beyond her control.

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