Interview with Ree Taylor
April 2008
Give Me 5
Ree Taylor, CMP Customer Relations Manager, Thales Raytheon Systems
Ree Taylor, CMP has enjoyed a long career in meeting management, both in California and in Detroit, Mich., where she handled corporate events in the community for The Detroit News before returning to California in 2004 to join Thales Raytheon Systems, a transatlantic joint-venture defense electronics company with offices in Fullerton, Calif. and Paris, France.Q: You plan a wide variety of meetings—from 70 to 100 a year. What do these encompass?
A: A lot of people focus on international meetings—that’s a trend, to go out of our country to organize meetings. I organize international meetings all the time, but don’t leave my office. I bring at least 50 customer groups a year into our office, sometimes once a week or sometimes more often. Some customers come for just a day and some for two weeks; every day, it’s a new meeting, new F&B, plus security is an issue. I usually arrange transportation and hotels. Once in a while, they bring their families, so I help the wives and kids find something to do. When they’re here over a weekend, they’re looking for fun things to do in the area. In Southern California, there’s lots to do—beaches, shopping, amusement parks, museums. So I have kind of a hotel concierge role as well.
My company is a joint venture between Raytheon in the U.S. and Thales, a French company. Our executives meet every month in Fullerton or at our office in France; I organize that six times a year. Plus, the top managers meet twice a year face-to-face; I do that once a year.
Q: Do you plan off-sites as well?
A: We call them forums—they’re informational meetings but also team-building. Almost every one of us in the U.S. has a counterpart in France...When not hosting them here on our site, I find hotels that are easy for the French to travel to—near an airport, flights that don’t need a lot of connections—in big cities like San Francisco, New York, Miami, New Orleans and Santa Monica (L.A.). Typically they’re social events, with receptions and nice dinners after meetings all day. We might take a tour of an interesting area, a downtown tour or a cable car tour; we went to Sony Studios earlier this year.
We do some team-building, also—not anything informal like volleyball on the beach—but where we get everyone mixed up on a team to solve a problem or something. Our goals are to [foster] better communications and to build relationships and trust. We have to work together, so face-to-face makes such a difference. That’s the value of meetings—face-to-face relationships you can’t have on the phone or with e-mail or webinars.
Q: What do you wish someone had told you early in your career?
A: I wish I had known about professional organizations—I’m a member of MPI and active in MPI Orange County. A lot of us in corporate meeting planning come from another profession. I have an English degree but have always been in executive office assistance. I didn’t know there were organizations like MPI or ISES, or that there were magazines I could read and learn some skills. Planners should take advantage of their professional organizations. They’re an extended network; I can always call someone in the government meeting association with a protocol question or how to handle a government meeting. It adds validity, and it’s reciprocal.
Q: How is the role of meeting planner changing? How have your efforts paid off for you?
A: I do see it elevating, getting planners a “seat at the table.” In my own job, this position started out as a glorified clerk—people thinking she does a bunch of paperwork and orders coffee. Now it’s a management position. I’m attending weekly senior meetings to discuss some strategic things—I make some suggestions on the agenda or keynote speaker and contribute to the content of the meeting. When the executive team starts coming to you and saying “What should be in this segment? What should we do with this hour? We want to talk about this subject; do you have any suggestions?”—you know you’ve made it. It’s kind of the squeaky-wheel thing in a nice way.
Q: What is your favorite professional tool?
A: Well, everybody says the BlackBerry! But my favorite tool is actually low-tech: it’s a spiral notebook, like a school notebook. I write everything in the same place, all in that notebook. I put the date at the top and start writing every phone call, every action, organized by date, and it’s easy to carry around. It complements the BlackBerry. You have no idea how often I refer to it—confirmation for a hotel, a phone number for someone I talked to. I’m a list-maker; I write things down and check them off. I keep it all in one book, no little Post-its.
Q: What’s the best tip you can share with other planners?
A: To have fun. It’s a great profession, a great career. We have an opportunity to meet people, see hotels, properties, different food venues.
It’s (also) the professional thing—a recurring theme with me. My advice would be to not just get involved in your own professional organization, but also to educate your colleagues and executives about these organizations. At our meeting in Santa Monica, I hired MPI colleagues for A/V, photography and special tours. Our CEO from France was amazed I had these tools—everybody else made me look good. I’m a member of a professional organization, and this is my network. We have a responsibility to educate people about our profession. People on the supplier side are already in the hospitality industry, so they know about professional networks. But on the corporate side, there’s no reason why my CEO would know there’s an organization or a certification program; it's up to me as a professional planner to educate him. C.K.
