I produce live events for corporations. When they look puzzled I go on to say that many corporations have a message they need to get to their employees, like a new policy, or a new product they’ve made that they want to promote, or a marketing strategy to explain. They typically do that in a large meeting setting. We support the delivery of their message by managing the writing of speeches and dialogue, producing graphic visuals to support the speeches or business theatre, create videos that open the show or set the tone, scenery that illustrates a theme, lighting and sound systems that provide atmosphere for audiences of anywhere from 50 to 5,000 people. That’s what I tell them. Invariably, they say, wow, that’s really interesting. Now, I know they still don’t know what I do, but the practice gets me one step closer to being able to explain it to my mom.

I spend a lot of time working with vendors via email or phone. As the manager of live events and meetings I have 6 people reporting to me so I spend some part of every day working with them either directly or indirectly. My primary client is Target and, in a typical year, from the first of January through the end of August they keep me busy with a number of meetings that we coordinate and manage.

Camembert. I was going to say, ‘used as a topping’ but opted for Camembert because it sounds so good.

Producing three unique back to back to back meetings for Target in 3 days.

I’m superstitious. I carry ‘lucky’ coins, throw salt over my shoulder, avoid cracks in sidewalks… that sort of thing…it’s minor, not debilitating or anything. For example, I’ve never officiated at a live animal sacrifice to ward off evil spirits but I have turned left instead of right to avoid a black cat crossing my path on a show day

It’s never the same; it’s always fluid and unpredictable. It has an element of the absurd from time to time that I find appealing. It demands heavy involvement with a wide variety of people and skills, I enjoy that. This business has more than its share of characters who tend to make life more interesting. At any given time I’m asked to be a negotiator, therapist, authoritarian and problem solver all at once. I’m ok with that.