When getting to know new industry colleagues, I am always interested to learn the career path they took that led them to their current role as either an association or tradeshow/event professional.   9 times out of 10, the answer has never been that they dreamed of doing this when they were a kid, or, majored in tradeshow or association management in college. Everyone’s story is as unique as associations themselves.

I certainly am in the majority. In college, I majored in psychology, minored in film and was planning on moving to California with the dream of becoming a Hollywood director. Fate had other plans for me, however, and my internship instilled in me a love of working with volunteers, managing and marketing events and the culture of non-profits. It was with a film festival and this subsequently led to my first job with another one. From there, I dabbled in corporate event planning and eventually spent the majority of my career managing nearly every aspect of an association from Meeting Planner to the C-suite.

During my time as an association executive, I witnessed many of our members go to what they affectionately called the “dark side”. Yikes! Was it really that bad over there? Many of these members were very active in the association as practitioners and then decided to join the supplier side of the table, which, were many of our association’s corporate partners.

So, like these members, I’ve joined the “dark side”. I was branded with an emblazoned red badge at my first industry event to warn anyone who crossed my path that my intentions may represent a commercial interest. But, for many of us former or current association executives, we know that is not true of all of our beloved suppliers.

When I was a busy association executive, I chose my “suppliers” which I preferred to refer to as partners, very carefully. My position kept my primary focus on internal operations and activities and I rarely had the time to immerse myself in the latest and greatest association innovations, ideas and thinking. I purposely kept my trade publications on my desk as a reminder to read, only to see the pile grow large enough to where I couldn’t see the person sitting in front of it any longer.

I expected my partners to sort through everything and bring to the table what was relevant for my organization. In addition to staying on top of the latest trends, they worked with a variety of clients representing a number of industries. I was always curious to ask them how others are doing things and what they are seeing as trends - which I did not have the time to research on my own. The partners I selected to work with were always an extension of my staff and were collaborators with us and experts at what they did.

After growing to love the industry that I never planned to love, it’s refreshing to join the supplier side and work with a variety of organizations, immerse myself in the field, learn and share and help clients to and the industry grow. I chose to make the switch to benefit a number of organizations and the industry that I have grown to love…and it’s not so dark over here!