We speak of shared experiences, of relationships and poignant moments that influence our lives, shape our perspective and sometimes give us pause.

As we gathered for the first full day of WEC, we shared in the elation of a city, no, a country, brimming with pride over its beloved Toronto Raptors, the just-crowned professional basketball champions.

Paul Van Deventer, MPI’s president and CEO, reminded us of the importance of our families at home. He made the courageous, and right, decision to skip the opening day to spend the time instead with his daughter, who is graduating from the University of Washington.

Darren Temple, the chief operations officer at MPI, gave us another shared experience when his son Cody, who is following in his father’s footsteps in the meeting and event industry, came on stage as we witnessed the pride of a father seeing a son forging his own path in the business. The moment turned even more emotional when Dena Blizzard, WEC host and One Funny Mother, invited all fathers on stage for a selfie. “I don’t think they understand the concept of a selfie,” she joked as about 100 dads raced up from the audience and surrounded Darren and his son.

We celebrated those who have distinguished themselves in their craft, the MPI RISE Awards for chapter excellence and MPI Chair Award recipient Michel Wohlmuth. We were saddened upon learning of the recent passing of two treasured members, Carol Norfleet, MPI Tennessee Chapter and 2016 RISE Award recipient for Member of the Year, and Peg Wolschon, MPI Dallas-Fort Worth Chapter, whose work led to the 2017 RISE Award for Innovative Educational Programming.

On this day, we applauded, we cheered, we laughed and we cried. We shared experiences, and isn’t that why we’re here?

Rich Luna
Editor in Chief, MPI
rluna@mpiweb.org