Welcome to the Fall 2008 edition of the CTSM Newsletter, keeping you up-to-date on the latest happenings and news for CTSM graduates and candidates.

In This Edition:
Congratulations to New Graduates!
EXHIBITORFastTrak Schedule for 2008
Portfolio Power-Working Weekends
Looking ahead to EXHIBITOR2009, March 22-26

Congratulations to New Graduates Who've Earned CTSM Credentials Since July 2008
We congratulate our newest Certified Trade Show Marketers who have completed all CTSM requirements:

		Tara Semisch, CTSM Director, Strategic Meeting & Event Management Novo Nordisk Inc., Princeton, NJ Tara is a graduate of the University of Delaware and began working for Novo Nordisk in 1999 as a Corporate Events Associate. Leveraging her organizational strengths and forward thinking, she rose steadily through the ranks to her current position. Her team is comprised of eight members, four of whom are direct reports, and they manage over 60 meetings/events per year, as well as the promotional speaker bureau program consisting of over 4000 lunch/dinner/telesession & pod cast programs. Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company, whose aspiration is to defeat diabetes by finding better methods of diabetes prevention, detection and treatment.
		MaryAnne Crawford, CTSM Convention Coordinator AstraZeneca, Wilmington, DE AstraZeneca is a global pharmaceutical company, considered to be in the top tier for research and manufacturing and a leader in delivering drugs for targeted therapeutic areas. MaryAnne supports two of their major therapeutic divisions - CNS and Oncology. She worked for them part-time for 11 years, then transitioned to full-time when her daughter entered college. She worked in various departments over the years, until in 2001 her "much sought-after Convention Coordinator role became a reality". With her certification, she is recognized at AstraZeneca as a professional in the field of trade shows and events.
		Bill Jackson, CTSM Marketing Services Manager A.W. Hastings & Company, Enfield, CT After graduating from the U of Massachusetts with a degree in communications, Bill spent his first seven years of professional career at a local network TV station performing production duties. From there he moved to Martin Industries as a media coordinator, where he got his first taste of the trade show world. A couple more company moves took place before he joined A.W. Hastings, the largest distributor of Marvin Windows and Doors, in 2005. Bill stated, "When I took this job, I thought I had a good understanding of what it took to manage a successful trade show program; however, after enrolling in CTSM, I realized just how much I didn't know. The entire experience has really opened my eyes to new ideas and processes that have aided me in my efforts to improve our entire home and trade show program."
		Lisa Lawley, CTSM Event Marketing Manager Cisco, Kennesaw, GA Lisa holds a Marketing degree from the University of Alabama. She pursued a few other ventures before ending up at Cisco in 1998. Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking, providing solutions for transporting data, voice and video. In 2001 their Corporate Marketing underwent a major reorganization, and she was offered a position with the corporate trade show team. Her role has evolved into a more strategic role, managing the Cisco Turnkey Trade Show Program. This program fulfills the needs of their field sales and marketing force that participate in small trade shows, typically utilizing portable properties. Lisa executes approximately 300 shows a year for them. She is currently working on a complete overhaul of all program assets, as well as a new ordering site and process.
		Mesha Hegna, CTSM Events Manager Harland Printed Products (Liberty), Mounds View, MN Mesha graduated from Winona State University with a major in Marketing and a minor in Psychology. She had to put both areas of expertise to good use following the acquisition of her company by a competitor, and having to plan a joint National Sales Meeting event in just six weeks, working with an entirely new team. This event became the focus of her portfolio. Her company is a leading financial services provider for small to mid-sized credit unions. When not working on her many tradeshows, meetings and special events, Mesha spends her free time helping abused and abandoned animals find good homes.
		Jennifer Green, CTSM Marketing Communications Representative Northrop Grumman, McLean, VA Jennifer joined Northrop Grumman about a year after graduating from George Mason University with an Advertising major and Business minor. Here she manages the trade shows and events for the Civilian Agencies Group. Along with one other person in her Marketing Communications Department, they support 4200 employees (their customers). Northrop Grumman is a $32 billion global defense and technology company, so all of their shows are government related, except one new commercial conference - the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), which Jennifer manages. She focused her portfolio on this conference because of its size and uniqueness to their company. Since submitting her portfolio, Jennifer has accepted a new position with Parature Inc. as their Events Manager.
		Linda Nosko, CTSM Trade Show Coordinator UniGroup, Inc., Fenton, MO Linda has been focused on "moving" for many years, first joining Mayflower Transit's headquarters in Indiana, then working for their branch in Colorado, and finally transitioning to Missouri when Mayflower was purchased by UniGroup, Inc., the parent company of United Van Lines. In addition to managing their trade shows and special events, she oversees their involvement in NASCAR and handles Mayflower's hot air balloon program. She also manages a public relations program called Discover America where they correspond monthly with more than 9,000 fourth grade students during the school year. She loves the excitement and variety of her job and is happy she "has found her true calling."

EXHIBITORFastTrak Schedule for 2008
One remaining 2008 EXHIBITORFastTrak Conference is fast approaching. This is a great opportunity to get in 10 more sessions on your way towards certification. It's EXHIBITORFastTrak Atlanta, Nov. 11-13. View the complete schedule and register online now at www.exhibitorfasttrak.com.

Portfolio Power-Working Weekends
In recent newsletters, you were introduced to a new service offered by the CTSM office - Portfolio Power-Working Weekends. These were set up to help you get away from "life in your world" for a couple of days and focus on writing your portfolio, with the assistance of the CTSM director and another graduate on hand to answer questions, review, and advise. On September 13th-14th five candidates came to Minneapolis, armed with laptops and files and a driving desire to get as much of their portfolios written as possible. They came from New Jersey, Kansas, Illinois and Minnesota.

After some preliminary advice on getting started by CTSM director Jan Nelson, all five were intensely writing by 8:30 AM. Two of the attendees were only able to stay for the 8 hours on Saturday, and the other three returned for 4 more hours on Sunday before heading home. In 8-12 hours, all five of them had completed, or nearly completed, five of the seven portfolio sections. They left pumped up to get home and finish their portfolio quickly.

Below are comments from the attendees on the benefits of the weekend:

"My personal goal was to have the portfolio submitted by the end of October in order to receive the certificate in March. This was the best way to get it started. Having the ability to focus on just this, was more beneficial than you'll ever know. I felt empowered and in control of my goal when it was over. Thank you" - DB

"It is very difficult to concentrate on a project like this at home or at work with all the demands placed on us and constant distractions. I actually had several 'a-hah' moments during the weekend that were invaluable to me as a result of the one on one I received." - JA

"I have such an extremely busy show schedule, I needed to jump-start my thought processes and actual writing. This weekend was invaluable and I would recommend everyone take advantage of it. Having advisors attend and be available for real-time assistance and tutoring was absolutely wonderful. Thank-you!" - NF

"The portfolio power week-end is a great way to get your portfolio started. As we need to plan our events, we sometimes do not make the time to plan for ourselves. This is a great way to do so. Even if you don't finish during the weekend, you will have enough of a start to get on your way to completing your portfolio." -RR

Because the feedback on this effort was so positive, a formalized offering of Portfolio Power-Working Weekends is being planned for 2009.

Looking ahead to EXHIBITOR2009, March 22-26
CTSM graduates: The New Graduate Banquet and Awards Night is returning to Sunday evening, instead of Saturday. Formal invitations with time and place will be sent later. This early notice is an encouragement to save the date, Sunday, March 22nd, as our CTSM evening of celebration.

Many new sessions are being offered - Advanced Learning, Workshop Intensives, Authors, Field Trips and more!

New This Year:

• LinkedIn networking site for EXHIBITOR2009 and EXHIBITORFastTrak attendees.
• EVENTSALONS - a set of fully designed rooms under the theme: "Customer Event Experiences, Concepts and Conversations". It's an industry first!

Basic Reminders:

• Save your session handouts. They are great reference materials, and you will need them to study for your Comprehensive Exam.
• Take your session quizzes online. This needs to be done within two weeks following every conference. Without the quizzes as verification of attendance, your transcripts do not get updated. If you have attended past conferences and not taken your quizzes, it is possible to archive the conference records. By taking your quizzes and paying an archive fee of $90 per conference, these can get credited to your transcript. Contact Wendy in the CTSM office for assistance with this.
• Quiz ID's and passwords are reset for every conference. Get your new generic ID and password on the inside front cover of your handouts.
• Pay your $90 CTSM Transcript Maintenance Fee when registering for EXHIBITOR2009. There is a line item on the registration form for this. It's due with every conference you attend.

Hoping your CTSM experience is a positive and interesting addition to your lives!


Janice Nelson
CTSM Executive Director
jnelson@ctsm.com