Keynote Speakers

Janine Driver

Janine Driveris the founder, president, and lead instructor for the Body Language Institute, an elite certification program that offers award-winning advanced communications training that help executives, sales people, and other professionals build executive presence, explode their selling skills, and create and deliver business presentations that win new business. Janine and her team of the world’s most sought after subject matter experts have helped clients become the total leader, which ultimately led them to win billions of dollars in new business contracts.

Janine’s is an international communications expert, published author, keynote speaker, and a popular media guest. Janine has made appearances on NBC’s Today, The RachaelRay Show, and CNN’s Larry King Live. She has been quoted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and in magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Psychology Today. Janine’s book, YOU SAY MORE THAN YOU THINK: The 7-Day Plan on Using the New Body Language to get What You Want! (CROWN) hits shelves, around the world, on February 16, 2010.

Janine’s background includes being a federal law enforcement officer within the United States Department of Justice for fifteen years, where she trained over 60,000 lawyers, judges, and law enforcement officers how to read body language and detect deception. Janine also is a popular keynote speaker and presenter (www.lyintamer.com), and is a certified instructor at the Institute of Analytic Interviewing.

In addition, Janine is an approved speaker for Vistage, a worldwide leadership company that helps senior executives, who make over ten million dollars, take their careers—and their companies—to a higher level.

Visit www.lyintamer.com for your FREE Body Language Do’s and Don’ts Mini Course!

Check out what Janine has to say about Cascadia Olympics 2010 in her video >>

Tim Sanders

Tim Sanders stands for strong business relationships, both internal and external. "Get them right," he says, "and you'll grow your business during good and bad times alike." His relevant point of view makes him one of the most desired speakers on the conference and convention circuit.

As a New York Times bestselling author, public speaker and former Yahoo! Chief Solutions Officer, Tim has deep experience in cutting-edge businesses and marketing. He's weathered the quality movement as well as the dotcom crash and emerged with precious insight. His work is frequently featured in the media, most recently in The New York Times, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company.

Check out what Tim has to say about Cascadia Olympics 2010 in his video >>

Pete Winemiller

Pete Winemiller has been an executive for 15 years with NBA franchises. He is charged with creating repeat customers in a business environment where you cannot control the level of success on the basketball court (the purchased product), but you can control what happens in the stands (the customer experience).

Summary

People do not remember days, they remember moments – Moments Matter! Your verbal and nonverbal communication with customers can make or break consumer loyalty in a split second. That is because customers think more about their experiences with people than they do about products and services. Research shows retaining a consumer or sending him/her off to the competition comes down to the sum of countless interactions between customer and employee.

Key Take Aways

Feel the power of thinking big & ACTING SMALL.
Learn to design and maintain a culture of problem-solving.
Commit to telling the story your front-line staff dictates your bottom-line cash.
You can treat all of your customers differently, just as long as you treat all of them well.
FUN is spelled Fully Understanding Nonsense™…Lighten-Up!

Breakout Speakers

Corbin Ball, CSP, CMP, MS

Corbin is an international speaker, consultant and writer helping clients worldwide use technology to save time and improve productivity. With 20 years of experience running international technology meetings, he now is a highly acclaimed speaker with the ability to make complex subjects understandable and fun. His articles have appeared in hundreds of national and international publications and he has been quoted in the US and News Report, Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Fast Company, PC Magazine and others. Corbin serves or has served on numerous hotel, corporate, convention bureau and association boards. He is the only person to have received both the MPI International Supplier of the Year and the MPI International Chapter Leader of the Year awards. Corbin has been named for four consecutive years as one of "The 25 Most Influential People in the Meetings Industry" by MeetingNews Magazine.

Andy Bishop

Andy is currently Director of Sales and Marketing for the Grand Hyatt Seattle and Hyatt at Olive 8. Andy is a nineteen year hotel sales professional. He started his career at the (former) Hyatt Regency Los Angeles in 1991. Since then, he has worked for Hyatt and Marriott in locations in Los Angeles, Kansas City, Calgary and Seattle. He was Hyatt Hotels BT Sales Manager of the Year in 1996, Director of Sales of the year finalist in 1998, and Marketing Director of the year for Marriott International in 2004. While working in Canada for eight years, he served two years on the Destination Marketing Fee Committee in Calgary. Most recently he was charged with the pre-sell and opening of the Hyatt at Olive 8, Seattle’s first LEED certified hotel. He is the Director of Sales & Marketing for both Hyatt Hotels in downtown Seattle. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and a former US Army Officer. He and his wife Brit live in Kingston, WA with their three children.

Gina Broel, CMP

Gina Broel, CMP, has over 17 years of events and marketing experience. She has worked for the Microsoft Corporation for 14 years in a variety of marketing communications roles. For the past six years she has worked on the Microsoft Events Team, managing many of the company’s largest internal and external events. Gina is also active within the events industry, serving as a member of PCMA, a member of the Green Meeting Industry Council, a member of MPI’s Corporate Social Responsibility Task Force, as well as a Panel member of the APEX Green Meetings & Events Practices Panel.

Ed Cohen

Ed Cohen is a talent executive with 30 years of high impact, global experience. His specialty areas include leadership strategies, executive development, coaching, high impact leadership teams, succession planning, organizational culture, change management, and the global leadership journey.

Ed has worked in more than 40 countries with organizations including Booz Allen Hamilton, Mahindra Satyam, Seer Technologies, National Australia Bank, Larsen & Toubro, Farmers Insurance Group, Banco Banesto, and the World Economic Forum. His strength as a consultant and leader comes from his high integrity approach to building trusted relationships. From China to Chicago, from Australia to Amsterdam, Ed has also been a featured speaker throughout the world.

Ed Cohen is the only Chief Learning Officer to lead two companies to ASTD BEST Award #1 ranking; Booz Allen Hamilton and Satyam Computer Services (only company outside United States to achieve this). He is the author of Leadership Without Borders published John Wiley & Sons which received multiple international accolades. He is also co-author of Riding the Tiger: Leading Through Learning in Turbulent Times, published by ASTD Press this May 2010.

Prior to his consultant role, from 2005 to 2009 Ed lived in India working as Senior Vice President for Mahindra Satyam, a global, technology professional services. Under Ed’s leadership, they became the first and only company outside the U.S. to attain the # 1 ranking by American Society for Training & Development (ASTD). Before that, Ed Cohen was eight years with Booz Allen Hamilton. Under Ed’s leadership, they achieved the # 1 ranking on both Training Magazine’s Top 125 list and ASTD’s global list. Booz Allen also received more than 30 “Excellence in Practice” recognitions from ASTD (American Society for Training & Development). He implemented learning and people services including people strategies, executive coaching programs, action learning, virtual learning, social networking, that have cumulatively resulted in more than $500 M of return on investment.

Ed participated in Harvard Business School’s Leading Professional Services Firms, earned a M.S. in education from Nova Southeastern University and a B.A. in accounting from the University of Florida.

Carol E. Cooper, CMP

Carol is an Event Program Manager for the Corporate Marketing Group of Microsoft Corporation. Carol Cooper joined the Microsoft Corporate Events Team in 2006 to broaden her event experience with large conferences. One of her first assignments was a road show for a product launch that brought in 38,000 people in 15 cities across the US. The next challenge was delivering the Worldwide Partner Conference for 10,000 people. This past year Carol took over TechEd three months before the show which typically brings in 12,000 IT professionals. Carol has definitely achieved her goal of large conference experience.

For the six years prior, Carol produced events and tradeshows in the Microsoft Enterprise Partner Group (EPG) where she was responsible for managing events for and with Microsoft Partner companies like HP, Cap Gemini, Computer Associates, and Unisys. Many of these meetings were high touch events with C-level executives and included some international events in Canada, Thailand, Holland, and India.

Before joining Microsoft, Carol planned events and tour programs for a Seattle DMC. And before that, she managed events for corporations, non-profits and public agencies in Southern California. While working in Pasadena Carol also wrote articles for an on-line event publication and won two national special event awards for the promotion of a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

Currently, Carol serves on the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau Customer Advisory Board and the Professional Convention Managers Association (PCMA) International Task Force.

Carol’s formal education includes a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and M.B.A. coursework as well. She has run her own business as a freelance event planner, writer and small business consultant in both California and Washington State. Carol is originally from Mississippi.

Laura Daniel, CMP

Laura is currently Director of Group Sales for the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle. With over 20 years of sales experience, Laura Daniel has been recognized both on a local and national level for her contributions to the meetings industry through involvement in Professional Convention Management Association ( PCMA). In addition, she has been a top sales leader with Fairmont Hotels and Resorts since joining the company in 2003, being recognized by Fairmont as one of fifteen top sales professionals in the company. She has also achieved the highest sales designation as Fairmont Presidents Club.

In 2004, Laura was the Recipient of the PCMA Annual Award for Outstanding Service to a Chapter which is a National Award. And, in 2001, she was the Recipient of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of PCMA’s President’s Award for Outstanding Service and Dedication to the Chapter.

Currently, Laura serves on the 2010 PCMA National Committee for Conference on Leadership. Laura is a Past President of the PNW Chapter of PCMA, a past Committee leader with the Convention Liaison Council (CLC).

Laura graduated in 1988 with a business degree in Hotel Restaurant Management from Northern Arizona University.

Mike Ditter

Mike is Vice President/Team Director with ConferenceDirect. Mike’s career spans twenty four years in the hospitality industry. Prior to joining Conference Direct in 2001, Mike served in various sales capacities with Hilton and Starwood from 1986 to 2000. During his career with ConferenceDirect, he started and managed their office at Microsoft where they did the site selection for Microsoft’s Tier One meeting business which equated to about 135 million in annual rooms revenue. In 2006, it was time for a change; the commute from Gig Harbor to Redmond was a bit much so he is still with C/D, just working from home consulting with a variety of Corporate and Association accounts and managing other ConferenceDirect Associates.

Mike is an active member of PCMA and is a past board member and President PCNW chapter of PCMA as well. He is a graduate of Washington State University with a double degree in Hotel & Restaurant Management and Business Administration. Mike and his wife Candace are the parents to two boys Chad (13) & Mack (11). Mike enjoys coaching his sons in baseball and football, and has a strong passion for snow and water skiing.

Alex Doyle, CMP

Alex P. Doyle, CMP has been with 21st Century Group since April 2000 and is responsible for providing major client meeting accounts with hotel site selection and meeting related services. Mr. Doyle personally manages over 25 meeting accounts ranging from national associations, major corporations and professional societies located in the Pacific Northwest as well as around the country.

With destination and hotel expertise in locations such as Hawaii, Pacific Northwest, Southern California, Las Vegas and Arizona, Doyle assists his clients with finding the appropriate hotel and negotiating hotel contracts to best serve the specific needs of the organization and their meeting goals.

With over 25 years of practical experience in the meetings industry, Doyle has served as a Director of Conference Services, National Sales Manager and as Director of Sales & Marketing for a number of meeting resort hotels in California, Florida and Hawaii during his hospitality career.

Mr. Doyle holds a BS in Marketing from the University of Nevada, Reno and is active in Oregon Society of Association Management, Meeting Professionals International, Oregon Chapter, Professional Convention Management Association and is a designated Certified Meeting Professional as sanctioned by the CIC (Convention Industry Council).

Mr. Doyle resides in Forest Grove, OR with his wife, Debbie of 30 years and enjoys golf, hiking, cycling and camping and is an active member of St Anthony Catholic Church.

21st Century Group is a Maui based hotel site selection and meeting services company with 7 offices nationwide and has been serving the needs of the meetings industry since 1994. For more information on 21st Century group Please visit our website at: www.21scenturygroup.com.

Judy Henrichs, CMP

Judy Henrichs, CMP is a nationally recognized meetings and events veteran. She is the founder of MotivAgent, a destination management, event and marketing services company. Judy and her team designs and produces corporate, incentive and association meetings and events that build relationships and brand equity while delivering on meeting and marketing strategy.

Judy’s meetings and events industry experience exceeds twenty years as both client and vendor in senior marketing, logistics and production roles. Judy has supported clients ranging from Honda of America and Genentech to Microsoft and Boeing and also focused on special events in such roles as Executive Producer of the Hispanic Heritage Awards at The Kennedy Center, earning a positive review in
The Washington Post, and as Special Events Co-Chairperson for the PCMA 2008 Annual Meeting.

Judy is a member of PCMA and MPI and serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington State Chapter of HSMAI and the Editorial Advisory Board of Northwest Meetings + Events. Judy has also founded and served as chairwoman of a non-profit athletic and educational foundation.

Carol Huckaby, CMP

As a program manager in the Intel Fellows Office, Carol produces the domestic series of annual strategic events for Intel's most senior technologists. With eleven plus years of event management experience, she excels making the complicated look effortless by developing and streamlining processes to do more in less time. Carol is a member of MPI, and a certified meeting professional.

Teri Jarvie, CMP

Teri is the Director of Meeting Services for the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. In this role, she is responsible for site research, contract negotiation, and meeting logistics for all domestic and international meetings and conferences conducted by CSCMP. CSCMP's annual meeting attracts over 3,000 attendees. Teri has served on several convention bureau advisory boards including Atlanta, Seattle, and Toronto.

At the 2010 PCMA Annual Meeting in Dallas, Teri just recently received the nationally recognized 2009 Distinguished Meeting Professional of the Year Award.

Teri has been in the hospitality industry for over 25 years, beginning as a hotel management trainee. Currently a member of PCMA’s International Task Force, she has also served PCMA as a member of the Board of Trustees of the PCMA Foundation, a past member of the Board of Directors of PCMA, and is a Past President of PCMA’s Greater Midwest Chapter. In 2005 and 2006, she chaired the Hospitality Industry Relief Task Force which directed relief to the hospitality industry in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Teri has earned the industry's certification as a Certified Meeting Professional.

Sue Kerber, CMP

Sue will collaborate with Kristi to keep the on-site discussions rolling. Sue is a veteran planner with the Washington State School Directors’ Association. Her twenty plus years with the Association also includes work with the design, development and delivery of leadership programs and services for the 1,477 school board members in Washington State. She has presented at state and national meetings and conferences, has facilitated strategic planning services for school districts and is a certified reviewer for the Washington State Quality Award program.

Jessica Ludders

Jessica Ludders has ten years of event experience. For the past six years, she has worked with Sound Planning to partner with Microsoft on the delivery of high level executive meetings as well as large scale conferences. Upon receipt of her MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in June 2007, Jessica began collaborating with the Microsoft Events Team to bring environmental sustainability to their events. She has helped Microsoft understand why this work is critical and how it can help the company reach both bottom line and environmental/social goals. Jessica is active in furthering a set of sustainability standards for the industry as the Meeting Venue Committee Chair for the APEX Green Meeting & Events Practices Panel and she spearheaded a trial run of the British Standard for Sustainable Events, BS 8901, in March 2009.

Dean Martin, CMP

Dean is currently an Event Marketing Manager at Microsoft Corporation. Dean joined Microsoft in 2004 as an Event Marketing Manager on the Central Marketing Group Events & Studios team. He is responsible for event marketing and management of many of the company’s worldwide strategic events – external customer/partner events, internal conferences, CXO events, product launches and tradeshows – all ranging in size from 300 to 15,000 participants. Dean has over 13 years of strategic and logistic event management and marketing experience within Microsoft and, prior, with Maritz Travel Company. At Maritz, Dean spent seven years leading account management teams for Fortune 500 clients, with a focus in managing registration and housing systems. Dean received his B.A. from the University of Missouri, Columbia. He is an active member of PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) and holds a CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) designation. He currently serves on the PCMA North American Advisory Board to Mexico and the German Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Board. Dean lives in Seattle, Washington.

Leasa Mayer

Leasa Mayer is the President of CRG Events. She is a Certified Meeting Planner and former President of the Washington State Chapter of Meeting Professionals International. Leasa joined CRG in 1987 as an event planner and worked her way up to become President in 1996 and owner in 2000. Over the years, CRG Events has developed into a full-service event management company, working with outstanding clients to produce meaningful events. This year, CRG was awarded MPI’s Global Paragon Award for their event partnership with WAMU.

In addition to her work with CRG, Leasa sits on the Board of the Nutrition for Wellness Foundation; in 2004 was recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal as a Woman of Influence, and in 2006 was honored by the Women Business Owners organization as a finalist for the Nellie Cashman Award. Puget Sound Business Journal as one of their Influential Women of the Year.

Leasa and her husband, Brian, will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary this year, and are delighted to be the parents of Callie (14) and Danno (13).

Ken Pickle, CPCU, CMP

Ken is a Senior Planner with Liberty Mutual Agency Markets. In his 33rd year with Safeco/Agency Markets, he is part of a team that plans and executes annually 150 meetings for Safeco and 50 for Liberty Mutual. He has been planning meetings full time since January 1992, and previously attended 11 years of Safeco incentive conferences as the Media Coordinator. He has served a 3-year term on the Insurance Conference Planners Association (ICPA)(now FICP) Board of Directors (Treasurer and Vice-President, Membership). For twelve years he wrote a regular column for Insurance Conference Planner magazine on the topic of AV. He is also a retired Captain in the Naval Reserve Intelligence Program. There is no truth to the rumor that his father invented the “Pickle Switch.”

Dawn Rasmussen, CMP

Dawn began Pathfinder Writing and Career Services after working more than 15 years in the meetings/travel industry as a meeting planner and on the convention/visitor bureau side. She also has served as a state school to career director for a national hospitality workforce development program, coordinating employment activities with 49 high schools in the state of Oregon, touching the lives of more than 13,000 students.

Since then, she has coached literally thousands of people on how to effectively manage their careers, write résumés, prepare for job interviews and conduct effective job searches. Her expertise focuses on developing laser-precise and keyword-rich résumés and career documents for clients ranging from entry to executive level.

Additionally, throughout her own career, Dawn has always maintained that mentoring and volunteering is an important part of giving back to the community. She is currently volunteering her expertise through a résumé writing class she teaches every week at the Oregon Employment Department, with the goal to educate and advocate about the power and impact that résumés can have on a person's career. Additionally, she serves as a résumé writing instructor at three Portland (OR) area community colleges, and is a noted professional speaker leading workshops on career management, job search techniques and résumé writing.

Kathy Rust

Kathy Rust, founder of Rust & Associates, LLC, has over 25 years experience working in the travel and meetings industry. She currently consults in the design, implementation and management of strategic programs to help organizations maximize productivity, spend and effectiveness. Nationally recognized in 2008 as one of the top 20 “changemakers” in the meetings industry she is a leader in the emerging field of strategic meetings management.

Kathy spent ten years at Microsoft managing events and global travel. In addition to leading the group travel program she managed the Microsoft Preferred Vendor Program for all meeting and event suppliers. She went on to support the globalization of the $450M travel program, negotiating regional then global air, car and hotel programs.

She was hired by Washington Mutual in 2005 to gain control of their meetings program. For nearly four years she led the strategic meetings management effort implementing policies and processes that resulted in a 15% cost savings and a 30% efficiency increase.

Kathy is one of twelve industry leaders who recently developed the Strategic Meetings Management Certification program for the National Business Travel Association. She taught the inaugural class in November 2009 and continues to support the expansion of the program.

Kristi Casey Sanders

Kristi is the editorial director/chief storyteller of Plan Your Meetings (planyourmeetings.com), an interactive educational and social resource for meeting and event planners. She has been covering industry trends and reporting on the meetings and convention industry since 2003. Prior to joining the PYM team, she provided corporate entertainment and training in Amsterdam, teaching multinational corporate groups soft skills through improv comedy. She is a frequent educational speaker for organizations such as the Professional Convention Management Association, Society of Government Meeting Planners, Meeting Professionals International, SITE and the International Association of Administrative Professionals, on topics ranging from how meeting planners can prove their worth at work to how they can change the world one meeting at a time. Follow Kristi on Twitter, @PYMLive.

Lisa Schelle

Lisa is the Director of the Global Meetings & Events (GME) department at Nike, Inc. in Portland, Oregon. GME is Nike’s meeting management resource for global off-site meetings and events.

In 2008 GME changed its business model to develop and launch a Strategic Meeting Management Program, now in full implementation phase.

Prior to joining Nike, Lisa held positions as the Global Events and Internal Communications Manager for Ford Financial and Ford Motor Co. in Michigan; Marketing Manager for the Great Lakes of North America, an international tourism marketing organization in Chicago; and as a meeting coordinator at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

Lisa is active in numerous meetings industry events including: a member of MPI and PCMA; Advisory Board member for Elite Meetings Alliance; task force member for PCMA’s annual meeting and the Marriott Corporate Partnership Conference; etc.

Andrew Taylor, CMP

As Director of the Intel Fellows Office, Andrew is chartered to increase the impact of fellows inside Intel and in industry. Building on a Computer Science and Mathematics foundation, software engineering, and a decade in engineering management, he has designed and delivered a wide range of senior technologist programs around the world including the US, China, Malaysia, India and Europe. Andrew is active in the Industry Fellows Forum, a member of IEEE and a Certified Meeting Professional. He has consulted for many of the Fortune 50 and delivered professional talks on technical talent, innovation and leadership programs.

Meghan Woods

Meghan Woods is a Senior Event Manager at CRG Events in Seattle. With over ten years of experience in the event planning industry, Meghan has planned a wide-range of events such as large scale conferences, external and internal meetings, road shows, tradeshows and recognition/reward programs and has worked on both national and international programs. She has planned events for companies such Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, F5 Networks, Medtronic/Physio-Control and Washington Mutual. Meghan’s principal strengths in her field focus on providing her clients with high-level event consultation, strategic implementation of event goals into logistical execution, driving planning timelines and managing large vendor teams. She strikes a great balance between driving her team and client towards results and being collaborative every step of the way to help clients prioritize and make decisions.

Since 2006, Meghan has been the logistical lead for Microsoft’s largest annual partner event – the Worldwide Partner Conference - an event with up to 12,000 worldwide attendees. In her role, she manages the overall planning and execution of WPC as well as contributing to the overall strategy as it relates to the event logistical elements. She helps lead a large team – managing over 800 vendor staff onsite. Meghan has gained a tremendous amount of respect from her Microsoft clients and the event vendors that she has worked with through her years planning WPC. She has become a true partner and invaluable consultant.

Prior to joining CRG, Meghan worked as the Director of Business & Seminar Development at North American Seminars. In this position, Meghan planned and coordinated conferences, seminars and managed tradeshow booths within the medical education sector.