Marriott International, Inc. (MAR / NYSE) has been named as one of the 100 best companies to work for in America by Fortune according to the January 10 issue of the magazine.

Marriott was named to the Fortune list for the third year in a row. The list was compiled through a poll of more than 33,400 randomly selected employees at hundreds of companies nationwide.

Marriott is very pleased to be recognized again by Fortune as one of the best places to work, said Brendan M. Keegan, executive vice president, human resources, Marriott International. We are proud of our associates` ongoing commitment to service excellence. In addition, we are pleased that we can make a difference in the quality of their worklife.

Fortune was assisted in compiling the list by Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz, best-selling authors of The100 Best Companies to Work for in America. To be eligible, a company had to be at least ten years old and have a minimum of 500 employees. Fortune said that 236 candidates were selected for this year`s list from their database of more than 1,000 companies.

The Fortune 100 Best survey is employee-driven, with two thirds of the scoring based on the answers employees provide on the employee survey conducted by the Great Places to Work Institute in San Francisco. Fortune indicated that 35 companies that appeared on the 1998 list were dropped from this year`s list because more impressive companies surfaced.

The typical 100 Best company has 5,125 employees at 31 sites in the United States. It is 30 years old and has a CEO with a nine-year tenure, and 1998 revenues of $1.3 billion. Its work force is 47% female, 75% Caucasian, 7% African American, 5% Hispanic and 5% Asian. More than one third of employees have been on the job less than two years.

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