People 12-1-2001

Meetings & Conventions: People December 2001

Edited by Terence Baker

Mary E. Collins is senior meeting and event planner for StorageTek, a data-retrieval company based in Louisville, Colo. Since Sept. 11, the company has been inundated with calls to set up data-retrieval and disaster-management systems. Collins is one of five planners arranging up to 250 meetings a year that range in size from 10 attendees to 1,200.

How did you get into planning? After college I worked on a cruise ship arranging shore excursions. Then I moved to Denver, where I worked for an incentive company. It was while there that I learned the attention to detail that is needed in this line of work. That company had links with StorageTek. I was actually loaned out to them for a while before starting full time five years ago.

How have recent events affected your business? We’ve had lots of calls about our products. If businesses did not think data storage was important before Sept. 11, they certainly do now. We also have an office right by the World Trade Center in New York City. Luckily, no one from it was harmed.

Are you a Colorado native? Actually, we lived in Chicago when I was a child, and during a business trip to Colorado my father called my mother and said, “Pack up the kids. We’re going to live in Colorado.” We came here three months later. On another trip, to Australia, he expressed the same opinion, but my mother put her foot down that time.

What would you do if not planning? I am a history major, so I would love to work for a museum. I have also taught history. My husband teaches history to eighth-grade students. I think one teacher in the family is enough after all, someone has to make some money.

T.B.

PLANNERS

HSMAI hires Davis-Brody for gala
Adrienne Davis-Brody has been appointed project manager at the Washington, D.C.-based Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International. Her primary responsibility will be to plan the association’s annual gala. Previously, Davis-Brody was senior vice president of marketing for Vacation Outlet/National Leisure Group. She is based in Boston.

Hartland heads up new department
Carrie Hartland has been promoted to meetings and events planner at Avon Lake, Ohio-based PolyOne Corp.’s recently created meetings department. Her former position at the company, which produces plastics, inks, vinyls and rubber materials, was as a travel coordinator in its Winchester, Va., office.