People 5-1-2002

Meetings & Conventions: People May 2002

People

Edited By Terence Baker

Sue Heley is the head of Heley Creative, an event planning company based in Prairie Village, Kan., a suburb of Kansas City. She also is the executive director of the Kansas City chapter of Meeting Professionals International.

How did you start your own business? For 15 years I had worked in several different areas of the hospitality industry, including being a manager of conference services and a director of catering, and I was ready for a change. Up ’til then I had done a lot of work with meeting planners, so getting a little more involved in that side of things was a logical step. I quit my job and hung out my own shingle four years ago, and I was very fortunate to bring many of my previous client relationships with me. What is your biggest challenge as a planner? It varies with each program and each destination, but I think the biggest challenge is to communicate properly. It's very unfortunate when you come across a supplier who is not able to explain what they would really like to see happen. That prohibits you from partnering effectively for the good of both parties.

What was your most challenging meeting experience? Producing four regional sales events simultaneously for the same corporation. Each event involved more than 300 attendees in four different cities, and we had one month to produce them. It all went well, but that was all we focused on that month. It showed me what I together with the people I partnered with could accomplish.

What are the biggest perks for you? The adrenaline rush that comes with reaching the culmination of a very detailed event or convention, when things go well and the client is happy.

• BRIAN ORSAK

PLANNERS

Planners Surana-Nirula joins National Immigration Forum
Rena Surana-Nirula has joined the Washington, D.C.-based National Immigration Forum as events coordinator. This marks a return to meeting planning for Surana-Nirula, who organized engineering seminars and events while at college. More recently, she worked for a Baltimore-based research and development company as an engineer.

Association Management Group hires Dopkin
Rebecca Dopkin has joined McLean, Va.-based Association Management Group as director of meetings and conventions. A seven-year veteran of meeting planning (she was most recently an account executive at Washington, D.C.-based Courtesy Associates Inc.), Dopkin will be primarily responsible for planning events for the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, also based in McLean.