Online Travel Bureau Start-Up to Be Based in Milwaukee.

Byline: Rick Romell

Oct. 5--An Internet-based start-up company headed by the outgoing chief of Milwaukee's convention bureau will be based here -- a city not known as a dot-com center.

Milwaukee bested the Washington, D.C., area and California's Silicon Valley -- center of the so-called new economy -- in becoming home to the fledgling firm The Official Travel Information Co.

Company executives believe Milwaukee can deliver the needed technical talent and investment capital, two areas in which Wisconsin is widely perceived as falling short.

But probably at least as important in the city landing a new dot-com outfit is the fact that its chief executive officer will be William A. Hanbury -- currently head of the Greater Milwaukee Convention & Visitors Bureau and …