Looking Forward to NAMPI 2023

by Kelly Bennett, NAMPI Board President

I can’t believe we are already in 2023. That means our annual conference (this year in Scottsdale,
Arizona) is right around the corner, and I can’t wait! Maybe it’s because I am cold right now and am
much fonder of warm weather than I am cold. I know I have written some other
articles in the past about what to expect at the conference, but wanted to chat about some of the
behind-the-scenes activities that our members might be interested in.
I think it’s particularly interesting that this year we will have a conference host state who also has a seat
on the Board. I am sure that has happened before and I won’t try to do the research to confirm that,
but I do think it really helps to be the Program Integrity (PI) Leader of the host state and have as much
information as possible about what to expect. When we were in Florida a few years ago, I was relatively
new in my role here as the PI Director and had no real appreciation for what went into putting the
conference together.
I think it’s not uncommon for the Board to ask that state’s PI personnel assist even as early as when
the location (specific venue) is being considered. Since Vanessa (Templeman) is on the Board it was
very easy to ask her to help tour some of the potential locations and it really ended up being a
tremendous help to the rest of us on the Board in making the final decision for the location. The PI
Leader would likely be consulted when the location being considered is a city within the state where
that PI Leader is located. When the conference was in Florida (and Miami Beach was selected) I wasn’t
really that involved in the decisions –Tallahassee is a long way from Miami Beach. But knowing what I
know now, I am glad that I understood what was “expected” from me.
I do think it’s important for the PI Leader to be in the know pretty early because there are things during
the conference that we need help with, and it is customary for the “host state” to assist with those
things. For example, typically, on the Saturday before the conference, the state has several volunteers
help put together the conference bags. How the state wants to handle that (is it work time; is it not
work time) isn’t something that we (NAMPI) are going to dictate – we just really appreciate the help.
And, the more the merrier. There are papers and goodies from the vendors to go in the bags, and there
are typically a lot of bags; so many hands make the work go much quicker. It’s been a while, so I can’t
remember how I did it when we were in Florida, but I presume it was considered work time because it
was helping our state be a good host and was securing some goodwill, which would likely be traded for
some of our personnel to attend parts of the conference.
Likewise, on Sunday there is typically some need for volunteers again to assist with people checking in –
making sure people are getting their bags and badges and know where the state-only sessions are,
where the exhibit hall will be, etc. Candidly, I can’t remember, but I think we usually ask to have these
volunteers back on Monday but after that, the new arrivals die down. [Sunday’s arrivals at the
registration desk are typically the state attendees and then some of the other government or vendors
who are just getting a jump on things for Monday. Sunday is typically dedicated to state only sessions.]
If you have any questions about what to expect at the conference, consider starting a chat in one of the
forums on our website.
A final thought while I am in conference mode. The Board members recently asked our conference
planners (ARB) to offer us some thoughts about things that we could be mindful of when we are traveling about in our home states or, for that matter, are on vacation around the country—things that
might spark an idea for a conference location some year.
• The size of the hotel (if you are wanting to be that specific) is significant; we need not only our
meeting space, but exhibit hall space and locations for our meals, plus enough guest rooms for
several hundred attendees. I don’t recall if we specified this but likely a hotel with fewer than
1,000 guest rooms wouldn’t be able to accommodate our need for 400+ of their rooms.
• Location as well, are there places to walk to just outside the hotel? In an urban setting, the
answer is typically going to be yes. But if we aren’t in a “downtown” location, some locations
just don’t have anything close by and most travelers won’t have a car (and that would mean
everything we do as a part of the conference is either onsite or we have the additional expense
of the transportation. One location that I recently looked at in my home state would quite
literally be about a mile walk just from the front door of the hotel, down the driveway, and out to
the main road.
• Overall costs of the city generally – some locations are just more expensive, where everything
costs so much – you would not believe what meals cost for a conference even with greats. And
it will vary greatly by city. Along with the cost of the guest rooms, off-site venues/activities, etc.
I also really think it’s our job – the NAMPI Board – to consider, in addition to the overall costs,
accessibility (how easy or hard is it to get there), interest (how much do we think our membership is
interested in going to the locale), and how we can get to a great conference environment on a state-
government budget. Our conference planning company, ARB, does a great job guiding us on these
decisions but I really wanted to be sure that if other states have ideas about locations, we’d love to hear
about it. These are exactly the types of topics we hope you will share with your state’s NAMPI Regional
Representative, who will, in turn, share it with Dale Carr (Chairperson of the Regional Representatives).
I am sure we will have more soon about what to expect from the Conference and I can’t wait to see you
there.