Howard is a legend. This year, he’s also recognized as one of MPI’s “Legacy Contributors.” Following, he shares some of his own history with the association.
One does not really know that something means to them unless they start getting involved in that “something.” You really do not know what marriage is all about until you get involved with it. You never really know what a job is all about until you start working at it.
The same is true with any organization you join, or work with. One does not really know what MPI may mean to them until they “connect,” not necessarily as a member, but let’s say as a “user.” That is what happened to me some many years ago.
Actually, it was 1970 when a few meeting planners and I met at a hospitality event in Chicago. Someone mentioned that we ought to form a club of meeting planners to help each other with various issues. This did not mean much to me since I had already been involved with planners via my job as director of sales for a hotel management company operating 22 hotels.
Anyway, as time moved on, others got involved in the “club” idea and then, in 1972, it all broke loose with MPI.
Then I realized how important this could be not only for me, but the wide variety of folk who plan meetings, but are not members, but can be trained by the membership of MPI. At that time, I had already been “on the road” with workshop training programs on sales, and more specifically, on how to work with those who plan meetings. It was at that time that I realized how important it could be to provide training for those who needed it on the details of planning meetings.
In 1980 I helped start an MPI weeklong training program for anyone interested. They did not have to be members of MPI. That went so very well that I realized that is what MPI meant to me…the idea is to help people do their job; make people pleased that there was something being done for the industry via MPI.
Our training then developed into an advanced training schedule. I became more involved in those training programs all over the country, not only via doing workshop and training programs, but also writing articles for a hotel magazine which, of course, included how MPI helps all hotel salespeople learn how to do a better job in communicating with meeting planners.
Now we are the largest and the best training opportunities for a wide variety of folks who plan a variety of meetings.
This even meant so much to me that I was offered a job of teaching meetings management, even at a lower income, to do this, which I like best of all, at a university.
Read more about Howard in our 2018 feature story, "Honoring a Lasting Legacy."
