Please welcome our newest members who joined IAVM in February 2018. Thank you for being a part of the association!

Also, let us get to know you better by participating in the I Am Venue Management series. Please visit http://www.iavm.org/i-am-venue-management-share-your-story to share your story and photo.

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Most of my interaction with Dittie Guise came when she was the COO of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority (PCCA), a position she assumed in late 2004 after working at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. The conversations took place by telephone and e-mail, mostly telephone. It was always a joy to hear her voice and to know that by the time I hung up the phone she would have elevated my intelligence by some nugget she shared.

I had not thought much about Dittie over the past few years, in large part due to the time I was away from IAVM for just over three years. The memories flooded back, though, when I heard that this sweet, powerful, and influential woman had passed away on March 6 after a brief illness.

Life often comes full circle, so we hear, and it did for Dittie.

She relocated to her native Jamaica to help open the SMG-managed Montego Bay Convention Centre in 2011. A renaissance woman in the truest form, Dittie was born in Portland, Jamaica, before moving to London, England, at a young age and going on to graduate from Chiswick College. She earned a couple of bachelor degrees in business management and fashion merchandising, a hint of the myriad interests and skills she possessed and pursued.

Dittie was SMG to the core and worked for the private management firm for more than 20 years. SMG’s Gregg Caren, executive vice president, Convention Centers & Business Development, said, “When it came to dedication to our profession, and expectations of nothing less than first-class service, Dittie never accepted less than 110 percent of herself or her colleagues. As a friend and colleague of 20 years, there will be a huge void for me and so many of our friends and family both in Jamaica and in the U.S.”

Caren’s initial comment shared a major reason for the secret of Dittie’s professional success — work ethic.

After leaving the PCCA in 2008, Guise served as president and CEO of International Hospitality Services and continued in that management consultant role to a cross-section of clients in the industry.

When home beckoned in 2011, it was only appropriate that the native daughter got a dream job in her dream home country. Although the venue has only been open for seven years, it has garnered several awards, including seven consecutive wins at the World Travel Awards for the Caribbean’s Leading Meetings and Conference Centre. True to her desire to excel, Dittie did not take the opportunity to return home as one to wind down a career. Instead, great things happened at her new venue.

Standing tall in that role was Dittie. Fittingly, she will always stand tall in the industry and amongst her many public assembly venue friends and colleagues.

Plan to join IAVM and the Green Sports Alliance for a GSA/IAVM Huddle on Wednesday, May 30, from 1-5 pm at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
GSA/IAVM Huddle

What: Professional development and networking event that will include sustainability tips, a panel discussion with breakout sessions, and a stadium tour!

Who Should Attend: Current and prospective GSA and IAVM members, public assembly venue managers, facility managers, sustainability professionals, and anyone open to learning more about greening your venues

Why: To increase awareness of the Green Sports Alliance and the International Association of Venue Managers organizations and missions, generate sustainability conversations to improve conditions in our state and region, and to showcase the Camden Yards Sports Complex sustainability and LEED certification efforts

When: Wednesday, May 30th, 2018; 1:00-5:00pm with optional baseball game afterwards (7:05pm vs. Nationals)

Where: M&T Bank Stadium, Club Level ~ 1101 Russell Street Baltimore, MD 21230

Cost: Complimentary admission to event; discount provided for optional Nationals/Orioles game ticket(s)

By Bill Edwards

On the night of October 1st, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada a gunman opened up with automatic weapons and over 1,500 rounds of ammunition on a sea of open air concert goers. Taking advantage of terrain, specifically high ground afforded by a 32nd-floor hotel room, the gunman was able to benefit from a mass of canalized people in a bowl environment. In a matter of minutes, the gunman was capable of bringing mass murder on an unsuspecting crowd, and once again changed the way we as a nation approach and think about security at public events and functions.

Easy access to a high-rise hotel room gave this shooter complete tactical advantage over innocent people. In a very permissive environment this shooter leveraged surprise and his plot was easily executed. However, this is not the time to point fingers, in fact, it’s an appropriate and opportune time to review how security is viewed and where it exists in our priorities. It is also a time for leaders, stakeholders, and companies that operate in the public space to actively revisit processes, procedures and stress security approaches that make sense. In essence, providing customized mitigation measures, solutions, and recommendations that will fit any type of event, venue, facility, or structure.

Overall, it is vitally important for security in all aspects to maintain a level of agility that allows for predictive and proactive postures and actions rather than mercurial and reactive end states. All too often we see large-scale efforts with regard to post-event forensics in a negative way. Time and time again we see through our media the repetitive questions of “what could we have done better and wasn’t security discussed for this event.” It’s time we turn those forensics into positive after-action reviews that show how we made adjustments to give us a better chance to predict and report results. Furthermore, as security professionals, we should take note of the complexity of this plan, but also the simplicity of its execution. It is time to collectively take a serious approach to security in all areas of public life.

So what can be done? First and foremost, security needs to be the first conversation with any endeavor. In the military, before any mission orders are executed, security is always the first order of work in every echelon of the Army structure. Customized security planning, coordination, solutions, and mitigation measures are the beginning of any security plan. In an era of advanced technologies, vast experiences with terrorism, conflict zone exposure, and a post-9/11 heightened awareness environmental landscape, there is no excuse for making security a low priority or a conversation that simply didn’t happen. There are always mitigation measures to put in place if a comprehensive Threat and Vulnerability Risk Assessment (TVRA) is conducted.

Additionally, a technology roadmap using cutting-edge surveillance solutions that are fully integrated throughout will provide an operations center indications and warnings of threat events rapidly. It is this construct that we provide the proactive posture to enable first responders to act precisely in the event of a security issue. This must be the goal for correct holistic security design.

True security professionals should deliver analysis, advice, design and implementation recommendations as a matter of simply doing business. Understanding, threat, vulnerability, risk, and mitigation is key. As a stakeholder in our public space, you need to ask yourself how I create a secure environment for my business that fits within my budget and allows me to provide the highest level of protection for my people, assets, and critical infrastructure. In the end, the investment is very important. I recommend a strategic vision, research on the competitive market and locating a security consultant that gives you a comprehensive security package emphasizing physical, operational, and technical security expertise that integrates all components without distracting from your day-to-day functions.

Remember, security must be a part of our identity in today’s tumultuous landscape. There is no greater endeavor when it comes to protecting our way of life.

Bill Edwards is Vice President of Operational/Technical Security Services at Thornton Tomasetti. He is responsible for planning, coordinating, resourcing and building operational/technical security services for a world renowned structural engineering company with a long history of successful protective design and physical security projects.

Iconic Western Australian business Bankwest was announced as the official banking partner of the Perth Stadium.

Perth Stadium CEO, Mike McKenna welcomed the Bankwest partnership. “It is only fitting that an iconic Western Australian brand is partnering with this world-class Stadium and this is yet another demonstration of the support Bankwest provides the State,” he said.

Added Bankwest Managing Director Rowan Munchenberg: “This exciting new partnership is the latest example of how Bankwest is strengthening its commitment to Western Australia. Perth Stadium will be an international sports and entertainment venue that we can all be proud of and it will make an important economic contribution to our home state for many years to come.”

In the lead up to the opening of the Stadium, Bankwest unveiled a series of tangible benefits all customers can experience and enjoy.

In addition, Bankwest will have naming rights to the 1,385 exclusive membership seat area which will be known as the Bankwest Club.

The Bankwest Club is the first product of its type to be offered in Western Australia and will provide sport and entertainment fans the ultimate stadium experience.

Perth Stadium officially opened with a free community open day on January 21 while the Fremantle Dockers played Collingwood in Round 2 of the AFLW on February 10.