Successful Meetings - August 2008 - (Page 43)

Association Meetings Oil’s Well A peek at how the energy crunch affected the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s mid-year meeting By Kinley Levack kinley.levack@nielsen.com Fuel costs are hitting us all where it hurts—so when the surrounding issues are a hot button for everyone from the federal government to the airline industry to the everyday consumer, how contentious a group do you think the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) is to plan for? Turns out, not as much as you might expect, although their content sure is heavy. “Consumers are hyper-focused on this issue now and we don’t think that it’s a bad thing to be in the public eye. People are finally starting to hear our message,” says Tina Hamlin, vice president of meetings for IPAA in Washington, DC. IPAA supports independent domestic producers and their companies, and supports offshore deep-sea exploSUCCESSFUL MEETINGS AUGUST 2008 mimegasite.com ration, as well as the use of federal lands onshore to find new supplies of American energy. Members’ companies are considered “upstream,” meaning they engage in exploration and production, versus the “downstream” sector, which refines and sells finished products such as gasoline, jet fuel, and propane. Hamlin, who has been with IPAA for 20 years, and her staff handle all meetings and events for the organization— a workload that has swelled significantly over the years. “When I started, there were only two meetings, but now we have about 30 each year,” she says, adding that “they’ve decreased in numbers a lot too. A lot more people were in this business when I started, but those numbers have PHOTOS: COURTESY IPAA 43 http://mimegasite.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Successful Meetings - August 2008

Successful Meetings - August 2008
Contents
Editor's Note
Industry Trends
Industry Events
On the Record
Technology
Calendar
Websites of the Month
Personal Success
Technology Talk
Food & Beverage
Pre-Event
On Site
Tools of the Trade
Pre-Event
Crude Awakening
Oil’s Well
Betting on Development
The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of
No Spa, No Dice
New & Improved Bean Counting
Places & Spaces
Cleveland
Palm Springs, Desert Resorts
Midwest Meetings
San Antonio
Yucatan Peninsula
Gurus

Successful Meetings - August 2008