Nancy Daniels, who has spent nearly three decades promoting Hawaii tourism, ended a lengthy career at Outrigger Enterprises Group on Monday.

Daniels is moving to Milwaukie, Ore., to be closer to her mom, Winnie Almeida, and her sister, Betty Walls.

“It was fun promoting and highlighting a home that I have had for 60 years,” Daniels said. “I might be off to the mainland, but Hawaii will always be my home. With my contacts, I should have a hotel room waiting for me from time to time.”

Coinciding with Daniels’ departure, the company is reorganizing its communications branch.

Monica Salter, formerly a senior vice president at Bennet Group Strategic Communications, joined the company July 11 and has begun overseeing Daniels’ tasks in her new position as vice president of corporate communications. Salter reports to Bitsy Kelley, who is the granddaughter of Outrigger’s founders, Roy and Estelle Kelley, who launched the company with the opening of a Waikiki hotel in 1947.

Bitsy Kelley, who had been in charge of corporate communications, will take on the newly created position of vice president of corporate relations, reporting to Sean Dee. She will represent Outrigger to internal and external audiences globally through relationship building, community outreach and company events.

Outrigger had an official sendoff for Daniels on July 26. Daniels said it’s difficult to see her 21-year career with Outrigger draw to a close. She’s seen the company expand from a mostly Waikiki operation to a global company specializing in beachfront destination properties.

“People who knew me in high school don’t equate the two. I was a very shy and introspective person in high school, and here I am leading the charge of communications for a global company,” Daniels said.

The Kaneohe girl got her start in tourism as a secretary of in-flight services for Pan American World Airways, then executive secretary for Inter-continental Hotels &Resorts followed by the Kahala Hilton.

When offered the job as head of public relations for the Kahala Hilton, Daniels called her husband, Dan, and asked whether she should go for it. She remembers he said, “Sure, why not? What the heck, if it doesn’t work out you can always go back to being a secretary.”

She spent seven years handling publicity for the Kahala, where she met the the emperor of Japan, the Dalai Lama, Richard Gere, Ted Kennedy, Luther Vandross, Flip Wilson and Diana Ross.

She also met Henry Kissinger, and has a souvenir photo that she keeps under wraps.

“I actually have a photo in my file somewhere that will never been shown. I’m about to give Henry Kissinger a lei, and when you give a lei you give a kiss on the cheek. The angle of the camera shot makes it look like a passionate kiss,” Daniels said. “His wife’s name is Nancy, so I remember thinking, ‘I’m the other Nancy.’”

When the Mandarin Oriental Group took over the Kahala hotel, Daniels joined Outrigger.

“When I first joined, I think there were about 22 properties in Waikiki. They ran the gamut from very comfortable, moderately priced to the beachfront. We had just entered the hotel condominium market on the neighbor islands,” she said.

Today the company has grown to 37 properties with almost 7,000 rooms. They operate on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Hawaii island and Guam, and in Fiji, Thailand, Mauritius, the Maldives and Vietnam.

Daniels said the Outrigger’s Waikiki Beach Walk investment, which came during a major economic downturn, was a leap of faith that spurred redevelopment by other companies up and down Kalakaua Avenue.

“Everyone had to keep up with the Joneses or, in this case, the Kelley family,” she said.