Wartime planners:
Army Reserve Lt. Col. Lou Leto,
public affairs director for the
Reserve Officers Association,
and Diane Markham, ROA’s
manager of meetings and events
Everyone can appreciate the disruption caused
by a cell phone ringing in the middle of a banquet dinner. But
rarely have cell phones been as disruptive as on the night of Jan.
22, 2003, at the Mid-Winter Conference of the Reserve Officers
Association.
Tension already was high when the ROA’s executive procession
marched into the International Ballroom at D.C.’s Washington Hilton
and Towers. With the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq only two months
away, many of the 850 people in attendance already were on
alert.
As board members took their seats at the head table, ROA’s
manager of meetings and events, Diane Markham, noticed an empty
chair. After a quick search, Markham learned the missing board
member was outside on his cell phone: He was being called to active
duty.
Soon, a chorus of pagers began ringing around the room.
“Everybody knew what was going on,” says Markham. “There was a big
war gearing up. By the time we left, several people had been told
they were being deployed the next day.”
As for the board member, says Markham, “He was back 15 minutes
later. And then we didn’t see him for a year and a half.”
Bunkering down
For event organizers at military associations, working around
deployment has been one of the biggest challenges in planning
conventions. At press time, reservists and the National Guard
comprised nearly 44 percent of U.S. forces deployed around the
world, or roughly 156,460 soldiers. What’s more, according to the
ROA, at least 5,529 members of the Reserve have had their duties
extended past 12 months.
This summer, Diane Markham was still adapting to the ripple
effects of the nation’s troop mobilization. In June, one week
before the ROA’s national convention in Salt Lake City, Markham
told M&C preregistration levels were low only about half the
anticipated 1,100 attendees had signed up. (At the time, about
168,316 reservists and National Guard were mobilized.) When Markham
flew to Salt Lake City from ROA’s D.C. headquarters, organizers
still were hoping to make up the shortfall with a last-minute rush
of on-site registrants.
That rush never materialized. When the four-day ROA national
convention launched on June 9 at the Grand America and Little
America Hotels, attendance lagged far below normal levels. A golf
tournament was canceled due to lack of entrants. Empty seats dotted
sessions. Even a nightlife city tour aimed at younger members had
to be nixed.
“We speculated that a lot of the younger people were gone due
to the deployment,” says retired Air Force Reserve Col. Steven
Lowe, chair of the convention’s host committee.
After the final count was tabulated, Markham saw the convention
had about 300 people fewer than in previous years. “We had never
faced what we faced this summer,” Markham says. “Even during Desert
Storm, our attendance went down, but not like this time.”
The past two years have been a learning experience for the ROA.
Recently, the challenge of unpredictable attendance loomed so large
that members nearly voted to do away with the group’s summer
convention, relying instead on a single annual convention in the
wintertime. In the end, the association decided to keep its summer
event a course that has prompted daring changes in the status quo
of the planning process.
Family ties
It’s no question Salt Lake City was an appropriate destination for
the 2004 convention. After all, according to Utah officials, the
Beehive State posted the highest number of reservists called to
active duty per capita of any state in the union. That statistic
resulted in a widespread promilitary spirit: Not only did more than
a dozen local businesses sponsor the convention, but in May, Utah
Gov. Olene S. Walker signed a bill making June 12-19, 2004, Utah
Military Appreciation Week.
Still, as a family destination, Salt Lake City doesn’t have the
same draw as locales like Anaheim, Calif., or Orlando. And since
many ROA members have children, organizers speculated some members
especially returning reservists opted to spend their limited family
time at home.
To address that problem, the ROA revamped its approach to site
selection. When the association met this summer to sign contracts
through 2009, they sought out cities where members would want to
take their families. Among those on the list: New York City,
Orlando and San Francisco.
Holding the convention from June 9-12 could have hurt
attendance, too, since some school districts end their year in late
June. Because an estimated 25 percent of attendees bring their
families to ROA events, the dates might have prompted a pass from
those whose children were still in school. Lesson learned: The 2005
national convention is set for the last week of July in New York
City. The association is billing the convention as a perfect time
for a family vacation.
Membership drive
Even for ROA members here at home, making time to attend a
convention can be challenging. According to Army Reserve Lt. Col.
Lou Leto, public affairs director for the ROA, drilling members of
the Guard and Reserve must fulfill more than 38 days of training
per year, including two days for monthly drills and 14 days of
annual training an obligation that often competes with work and
family time. Depending on their duty assignments, many drilling
reservists serve beyond these 38 days in planning, holding
conferences and preparing reports.
“If they have just come home,” says Diane Markham, “taking time
away from their families to attend a convention is a difficult
decision to make.”
In the effort to boost attendance, the ROA in June changed its
bylaws to allow a new category of members: spouses. As stakeholders
in the 75,000-member ROA, says Lou Leto, spouses now can
participate in lobbying efforts and vote in association elections
extra incentive for them to attend annual meetings.
Cost concerns
Keeping out-of-pocket costs down was another priority. After all,
unless ordered to attend the convention, members must pay for all
of their own expenses. One of the most popular activities at this
year’s conference was a free concert by the Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. The price was right, and the venue was accessible by public
transportation.
Adding relevance
Looking forward to ROA’s future events, Markham has sought
ways to energize the daily agendas. In July, she pitched some ideas
to her bosses: Why not make the meetings topic driven, with a
unifying theme? Or offer a menu of session options deployment
seminars for the younger officers, for example, and retirement
financing for the senior officers?
“My train of thought is to shoot big, so if they accept 30
percent of the ideas, I’m happy,” Markham says.
While she hadn’t gotten feedback as of press time, Markham
expects to implement some changes over the next year, particularly
as a result of spousal memberships. For example, seminars might
address marriage and family issues.
War of attrition?
With a room block of 700 peak nights and hundreds of attendees
missing from the event, the ROA left Salt Lake City with the
prospect of considerable attrition charges. One month after the
convention, organizers had not yet received the final bill from the
sister hotels. “We could be facing some very heavy attrition
penalties,” Markham notes. “Those 300 people make a big
difference.”
Kathryn Hancock, convention services manager at the Grand
America Hotel, would not comment on the contract, which she said
was signed three years ago. At press time, a spokesperson for the
property said the hotel’s accountants were looking into the
matter.
In the past, hotels have shown leniency in such instances. Last
June, one ROA official told M&C, “The most patriotic and nicest
thing I saw was a hotel general manager saying, ‘Don’t worry about
your attendance. It’s wartime, and I’m not going to count it.’”
But Markham isn’t sure if that will happen in this case. After
all, she says, how often would the ROA go back to Salt Lake City?
Without a chance for repeat business, she fears, a hotel’s
incentive to ignore attrition penalties might not be as strong. For
now, that final folio is just one more potential battle ahead.