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Utah
Meetings
Just The This is a story that potentially has many chapters to it. Literally, many chapters. The dilemma: Many public assembly facility professionals are unable to attend District meetings or the IAAM Annual Conference due to budgetary constraints. These same individuals yearn for industry education and networking with their peers. The solution: Chapter meetings, which are tidy one-day meetings long on education and geared towards individuals in a proximity-friendly region to the meetings.
“I was dying to find information and really didn’t have a clue what I was doing,” says Williams of his early years in the industry. “We didn’t have the Internet and all of the other tools of today to communicate with each other.” His frustrations reached a zenith just a few years ago when he was the only manager from Utah who attended a Combined District 4/7 Meeting in Portland. “I was irritated that none of the young (in the industry) managers in Utah went. I got back and called the seven of them and asked why they did not go to Portland. They said that they worked for small cities and small universities and did not have the monies to go.” Williams invited the group to meet and exchange ideas, but the meeting never happened. Finally, about a year ago, Williams called some of the key managers from his market and hosted a lunch. The seed for Utah’s first chapter meeting was planted, and some 60 individuals attended, many of them second and third level managers who could afford the $20 admission for a day heavy on education. “I wanted it to be educational,” says Williams, who shared information from the Body of Knowledge’s first book as well as some of the experience gleaned from his 15 years of teaching at the Public Assembly Facility Management School at Oglebay. “If there is not a professional development component to it, a manager won’t take the second and third level people to these meetings.” Williams has enlisted the likes of Larry Duffin, Brent Allenbach, Kevin Bruder and Craig Martin to instruct at the meetings. The Utah chapter hosted its third meeting on November 29th at the E Center of West Valley City. The meetings last from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. and include a tour of the host facility. Williams says that many attendees come from a 200-mile radius and is a simple day-trip for most. A committee of four choose the date, venue, topics and handle the registration fees. In short, Williams believes there is no reason that chapters could not sprout up across the country. The benefit is that strong leaders will continue to emerge in the industry thanks to learning at the grassroots level. “My goal is to have these meetings two-thirds education and one-third social/town hall, and I’m trying to push others to do this,” he says. “Chapter meetings should easily take place in a marketplace where there’s a senior manager passionate about the industry and the association. It’s really such a simple thing to do, and everyone benefits from it.”
The international carpet maker had a time frame of 10 days to: match the exact design and color specifications; produce the 65-foot design; and package and ship. “The time frame was so tight, the gymnasts were probably practicing on the carpet as it was being rolled out,” mused Alison Kitchingman, Milliken marketing director. The blue and green design featured the Olympic rings and welcomed the Games back to its birthplace with the message, “Athens 2004 – Welcome Home.” The unusually tight deadline occurred when the design and color specifications did not arrive until 10 days before the carpet was due to be shipped. “It was a sprint to the finish,” said Kitchingman.
Surf and
Turf
(Remember the images of the astronaut-clad groundskeepers – complete with space helmets – raking the dirt of the Dome during Houston Astros’ games?) Just as quickly as the popularity of AstroTurf soared it would later fizzle as the surface was blamed for many career-ending injuries, although the NFL in particular cited studies showing that an athlete was just as susceptible to injury on a grass surface. Clocking in at No. 2 was an event that actually happened in 1957, the year Da Bums from Brooklyn announced they were moving West with the surf to become the Los Angeles Dodgers (a move in which October/November Facility Manager cover subject Dick Walsh was very involved). At the same time, the New York Giants also relocated to become the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers made their temporary home in 1958 the spacious Los Angeles Coliseum before they started play in Dodger Stadium. At the time of the move, the Dodgers and Giants became the only two franchises located west of the Mississippi River.
CEIR’s
Exhibition Industry Index: The Good With
The Bad While revenue between 2002 and 2003 decreased by three percent and attendance dropped 0.5 percent, the upside showed a net square footage increase of 6.5 percent and a 6.3 percent boost in the number of exhibitors. The Index was created by CEIR to provide an objective measure of the annual performance of the exhibition industry. The Index broke down the data into 11 industry sectors or business fields and was compiled from 250 events between 2000 and year-end 2003. With an index value of 100 created as the baseline value for each sector’s measurements, here are the rankings for 2003: Sports, travel, entertainment, art, and consumer services: 118.8; Transportation: 112.8; Medical and health care: 112; Building, construction, home repair: 101.8; Professional business services: 101.1; Government, public and nonprofit: 98.5; Raw materials and science: 97.2; Industrial, heavy machinery, and furnished business inputs: 95.1; Food: 94.9; Consumer goods and retail trade: 88; Communication and information technology: 77.8. To buy a copy of the Index, contact CEIR at 312/527-6735. |
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© 2002-2004 International Association of Assembly Managers 635 Fritz Coppell, TX 75019-4442 USA Phone: 972/906-7442 Fax: 972906-7418 |
Scott
Williams, CFE, general manager of the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, UT,
has been an IAAM member since 1973 and has witnessed first-hand the
struggles that many in the industry face in finding nourishment for their
professional soul. After all, Williams was once in the same situation, and
remembers well the frustrations he had.
It
was only fitting that Milliken Carpet, one of the crafters of the “Made in
America” symbol, had a presence at the Summer Olympic Games in Athens,
Greece. While track and field was one of the most popular events, it was
Milliken’s effort that was a true sprint to the finish in producing 2,500
square yards of carpet for the Galatsi Olympic Hall, the gymnastics venue.
At
No. 5 on the list was AstroTurf. When the artificial grass was invented 40
years ago by Monsanto, it was known as ChemGrass. The playing surface
debuted in 1966 when it was laid over the concrete floor of Houston’s
Astrodome.
The
Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) released the latest news from
its Exhibition Industry Index and it is a picture of taking the good with
the bad.