(Pictured above: Helen Comer, Robert Green and Beverly Kinkade)

MPI had a very strong connection to St. Louis long before this week’s WEC. The MPI St. Louis Area Chapter is one of our first chapters, and many local industry professionals have led or been recognized by MPI at the international level.

These leaders include Weldon D. Webb, 1989/1990 International Board of Directors (IBOD) chair, 1997-1998 MPI Foundation Global Board of Trustees chair, 1997 Chair Award recipient and 1992 International Planner Award recipient; charter/founding member Robert “Bob” C. Green, 1980-1981 international president and 1980 International Planner of the Year; Helen Comer, 1985 International Supplier of the Year; David Peckinpaugh, 2015 recipient of the RISE Award for Meeting Industry Leadership; Nell Lockhart, 1995 International Supplier of the Year; Dick Hall, 1992 International Supplier of the Year; and Gil Ladendecker, 1989 International Planner of the Year.

As we celebrate both MPI and St. Louis at WEC 2025, we caught up with some of the former IBOD chairs who hail from the area to share a bit more about their experience in their own words.  

A reunion of MPI volunteer leaders from St. Louis: Kitty Ratcliffe, Beverly Kinkade and Helen Comer.

Amanda Armstrong

2018 Chair, MPI International Board of Directors

Serving on the chapter board and IBOD was a crash course in startup and nonprofit leadership. I learned board governance, PNL management and the toughest skill of all: leading volunteers. It taught me how to influence and deliver results with little to no budget. Learning to influence without authority is a valuable leadership skill.

I was chair of the IBOD during the #MeToo movement, and I’m proud MPI quickly addressed long-overdue cultural and behavioral standards in our industry. Under my leadership, we adopted a zero-tolerance policy on sexual harassment and became one of the first associations to roll out mandatory training for staff, board members and volunteer leaders. We also launched the MPI Cares hotline to give members a safe, confidential way to report concerns.

Beverly Kinkade

1991-1992 Chair, MPI International Board of Directors
1990 International Supplier of the Year

I did not realize at the time of board and then executive service with MPI how much I was learning about leadership skills—negotiation, collaboration, empowerment, compromise, fiscal oversight, parliamentary procedures and strategic planning.

These were lifelong gifts I was able to employ leading a nonprofit called St. Louis Ovarian Cancer Awareness. We were a fledgling group 20-plus years ago, but we now have a staff, an office, a great board, an iconic medical advisor and major fundraising initiatives. Our events provide thousands of dollars in research grants seeking a diagnostic tool for early detection and, subsequently, longer survival rates.

We accomplished this through years of board discipline and development, and I like to think the structures created in our formative years were forged through the skills I gained in MPI governance. As a long-term survivor of ovarian cancer, I am forever grateful.

Steve O’Malley

2019-2020 Chair, MPI International Board of Directors
2024 Industry Leader Award recipient

My time volunteering on behalf of MPI led to what have become lifelong friendships and relationships that have made both my personal life and professional life richer. Those relationships allow me to access valuable insight quickly about how our industry is performing.

I’m very proud that MPI has emerged even healthier, more diverse and more dynamic after my service on the board during the pandemic shutdown. The MPI staff did a remarkable job navigating the intricacies of the shutdown and recovery, and I witnessed their passionate work firsthand. Our industry owes them a tremendous amount.

Kitty Ratcliffe

1996-1997 Chair, MPI International Board of Directors
2023 Industry Leader Award recipient
1999 International Supplier of the Year

At a very early stage in my career, I worked on chapter committees and the chapter board, which helped my understanding on how nonprofits were organized, funded and functioned. That helped prepare me for the volunteer leadership roles I would undertake at a global level for MPI and, also, for the increasingly senior roles at my place of employment. I truly believe that the chapter involvement helped set the stage for my future and I am grateful for the opportunity that was offered at the outset. Working on the IBOD and into the chairmanship of MPI expanded my horizons, leading to a greater understanding and appreciation of different interests and issues.  

I also made many lifelong friends from the colleagues across the organization and industry. In short, my life is a different and much better one than I imagined it ever could have been as a result of the opportunities that global leadership with MPI provided.

For many years, MPI had another conference called the Professional Education Conference, and the year that I was IBOD chair, the keynote speaker was poet Maya Angelou. I will never forget the time that I spent in the green room with her, as she held my hand and spoke in her amazing voice to me about women in leadership roles. Although MPI leadership gave me many once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, that moment in time will be with me always (pictured below).

In the year when I was serving on the IBOD as immediate past chairman, then-Chair Anna Lee Chabot asked me to assemble and lead a task force on the subject of green meetings. She said she couldn’t think of a person more appropriate to do it, from my personal belief standpoint. That moment made me proud, just being asked for that reason. And then, the work that we did, the group that we assembled, the research and the experts, it was all an extremely rewarding experience to be doing something so worthwhile. 

Weldon D. Webb

1989-1990 Chair, MPI International Board of Directors

1997-1998 Chair, MPI Foundation Global Board of Trustees

1997 Chair Award recipient

1992 International Planner Award