Jeannette Gonzalez
Late in January, the new Network of Latino
Meeting Professionals (www.nlmponline.org) held its first meeting. The South
Riding, Va.-based group aims to bring together Hispanic meeting
planners and suppliers in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.,
for a monthly education session with networking and lunch. Events
run by the organization will be sponsored by hotels and convention
and visitor bureaus; participation will be free to interested
meeting planners.
“Our goal is to get to know each other, become the voice of the
Latino community in the hospitality industry and really say, ‘Yes,
we can be certified meeting professionals. We can be good as
anybody else,’” explained Jeannette Gonzalez, CMP, CEO of the South
Riding-based Agora Occasions and a founder of the group.
Haydee Grijalva, manager for membership and meetings at the
Association for Enterprise Opportunity, based in Arlington, Va., is
thrilled about the new group. The Network is helping her earn her
CMP; she in turn plans to help the organization grow.
“I think this is a great initiative,” said Grijalva. “I’m glad
we will get to know our peers around the D.C. metro area.”
The Network as the founders of NLMP prefer the organization to
be called is not unique in its mission statement. The Houston-based
International Association of Hispanic Meeting Professionals, which
has been in existence for more than a decade, shares the new
group’s goals on an international scale. In fact, the founders of
the Network initially met at an IAHMP meeting.
“We are not competing,” said Laurie Nelson-Choice, who serves
as the Washington, D.C.-based director, Eastern regional sales, for
Visit Milwaukee and is a Network founder. “There is room for two
groups doing different things. I just don’t want there to be
animosity.”
Margaret Gonzalez, president of IAHMP, did not return calls
about the issue. Two IAHMP board members did respond and said they
did not feel that the Network would be a threat. One, who attended
the NLMP’s first meeting, was eager to investigate opportunities
for partnership.
The founders of the Network, too, have indicated that they are
open to the idea of partnering with IAHMP on future events. As to
why they didn’t simply found the group as a chapter of IAHMP,
Jeannette Gonzalez said, “I guess we wanted to be our own
voice.”
Karen Staples, who until recently sold to the diversity market
for the Greater Hartford Convention and Visitors Bureau and is now
moving to Washington, D.C., to become the Hartford CVB’s director
of Eastern regional sales, said she is enthused about the new
group, though not the older one. The Hartford bureau hosted IAHMP’s
2003 meeting, she said, but solid results never materialized.
“I do not think the CVB will remain a member of IAHMP,” Staples
explained. “We have had little to no return on our investment.”