August 2023 - Shawn Boone

Shawn Boone, Senior Sales Manager Explore Asheville Member since October 2022

Please help us extend a warm MPI Georgia welcome to Shawn Boone, a Senior Sales Manager at Explore Asheville, where he serves as a “Destination Guru, Area Ambassador, Business Developer, Relationship Cultivator, and Resident Navigator.” Shawn fell into the meeting industry with his first job out of college serving as a marketing assistant. When interviewing Shawn for this feature, his passion for living a fun life stands out. His life-long walk-on song choice is Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.” Shawn could not go one day without laughter, and he exercises his best practice of “be kind and remember to have fun – lots of it!” Even his rookie career mistake comes with a happy-go-lucky perspective: “Thinking the grass is greener on the other side. It is because there’s more manure.”

His passion for Asheville and the western part of North Carolina is engrained in him. Shawn’s family members are all natives of Western North Carolina and his roots run deep, going back five generations. He respects those who have come before him and draws inspiration from seniors and older groups who have stories and experiences to share. Shawn also draws inspiration from his dream dinner party guests featuring Elvis Presley, Loretta Lynn, Tina Turner, and Aretha Franklin, acknowledging that they all started with literally nothing (and that he has seen the last three in person). If you can take one piece of advice from Shawn, he would share that “life is short, this is not a dress rehearsal.”