Ralph Elliott

Whether you're a leader of an association, a college/university administrator, or a private provider of events, you will leave a 'Ralph Elliott’ workshop with a battery of ideas and very specific ways to get more customers while holding on to the customers you have.

You will get simple, but effective, techniques that will build trust in your organization, remove obstacles to registration and court fence-sitters to attend your events. Ralph’s philosophy and his practical advice slogan are one in the same....You Will Learn How to Pack the House without Breaking the Bank! During the conference, you can capitalize on his years of practical experience at Clemson University.

At Clemson, Ralph was Director of Professional Development, Associate Dean for Executive Education, and Vice Provost for Off-Campus, Distance and Continuing Education. At the same time, he worked through the academic ranks... from Assistant to Associate and on to full Professor of Economics.

Jenny Hamby

Jenny is a seminar-marketing consultant, Certified Guerrilla Marketer and direct-response copywriter who specializes in crafting effective promotions for virtual and live seminars. She works primarily with independent speakers, consultants, and information marketers who want to use seminars to boost revenue and/or generate qualified leads for their businesses.

She has marketed a variety of seminars on topics such as financial services, inventory management, negotiations, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), trade show marketing, elder and disability law, and even bridge. Her training and experience as a Certified Guerrilla Marketer come in handy as she helps clients devise ways to use creativity and time to improve marketing results.

She was formally trained as a journalist but soon discovered that her natural copy writing ability made her better suited for marketing. In addition to marketing seminars and other learning events, she helps clients promote their books, videos, and other training products on the Internet.

Sam Head

Sam Head is a financial advisor with nearly two decades of seminar strategizing and presenting experience. As CEO of Carolinas Wealth Management, Sam is regarded as an expert in the financial industry as well as a dynamic and engaging public speaker. Never one to settle on a mediocre idea, he is always prepared to find a better, more innovative, and ultimately, more profitable solution to seminar/conference marketing. Sam travels around the country educating other financial advisors on techniques and strategies to grow their businesses through seminar marketing.

Sam's practice currently manages over $200 million in assets and oversees all six areas of wealth for their clients. Sam continues to grow his client base through public seminars. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from Clemson University. He is the financial planning partner of the Clemson Alumni Association and serves on the Board for the Center for Professional Advancement and Continuing Education (PACE) at Clemson.

Kristian Brown

Kristian Brown has more than ten years of experience managing award-winning hospitality venues. Kristian applies his professionalism and polished customer service to managing relationships with both regional and site-specific hotel representatives worldwide.

Prior to joining Conference Consultants Worldwide, Kristian held executive positions in sales and catering at two hospitality venues earning AAA Four Diamond accreditations. Prior to this, Kristian served as general manager of two highly esteemed restaurants in Portland, ME. He was responsible for daily operations, human resources, financial activities, and managing client satisfaction. Through these experiences and extensive travel, Kristian is well-prepared to find the finest hospitality solutions for his clients.

Mr. Brown has a BA in Business Administration from the University of Southern Maine in Gorham, ME. He enjoys golf, photography, travel, billiards, documentary studies and culinary arts.

Pat Hall

At the University of Tulsa, Pat Hall has created a center that produces 65% of its net income from contract/customized training programs. She is Associate Dean, Continuing Engineering & Science Education in the College of Engineering & Natural Sciences. She has had more than 30 years of engineering education and training experience in the non-credit professional development area for domestic and international operations. Her unit offers up to 100 programs a year (public and in-company seminars, web-based courses, certificate programs and conferences) with over 2000 participants annually. These programs have been conducted in 20 states and 20 countries.

Pat is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), conducting workshops and sessions for the annual ASEE conference as well as the mid-winter Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration (CIEC). The Continuing Professional Development Division of ASEE has honored her with the Biedenbach Distinguished Service Award. Most recently, she has served on the ASEE Board of Directors as the Professional Interest Council V (PIC V) Chair and Vice President of PICs.

Jud Hair

Jud Hair is Executive Director of Continuing & Professional Education at N. C. State University. Learn from the voice of experience with almost 30 years in operating non-credit continuing education as a profitable entrepreneurial enterprise.  Over the course of his career, he has led high-performance teams that have effectively planned, developed, promoted and facilitated thousands of successful seminars, workshops, short courses, and conferences for two different major universities.  He has also improved the operation of a major campus meeting facility and integrated it into the product mix, greatly enhancing the overall financial productivity of non- credit programming.   Under his guidance event management services has grown into a significant and extremely profitable revenue-producing activity, serving not only campus clients, but those from government, non-profits and the private sector as well.  Jud will be one of the hosts of the networking luncheons each day so you can learn how to create a major profit center at your organization.

Chip Futrell

Chip Futrell is the Associate Director of Continuing and Professional Education at NC State University. In his role, Chip effectively recruits and negotiates highly- profitable events management partnerships with campus, public and private sector clients who need help with bringing their programmatic ideas to fruition. Chip also develops win/win relationships with online program providers to combine the recognizable and respected brand of NC State with quality existing programming content to meet the needs of the university constituency.  Beginning his career in 1997 as a Continuing Education Specialist, Chip has also served as the Marketing Specialist, overseeing marketing campaigns for thousands of public conferences, certificate programs, and seminars.

Lorrie Thomas

Lorrie Thomas, M.A. is a speaker, trainer, and CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, a marketing agency and training company that diagnoses, prescribes and guides healthy marketing solutions. Her expertise empowers organizations to create scalable web solutions that brand, build and boost business. She teaches workshops for corporations and through UC Berkeley Extension.

Ms. Thomas was on the founding team at ValueClick Media and speaks nationally on a number of marketing-related topics and is known in the web world as "The Marketing Therapist" for her holistic approach to marketing. Her book, The 36 Hour Course to Online Marketing (McGraw-Hill) is a must-read. She has been featured in the media as a web marketing expert in publications including INC, Forbes, SUCCESS Magazine, the Associated Press, eCommerce Times, Entrepreneur, DM News and Tech News World.

Tracy Wazac

Tracy Wazac has a proven track record in adult education, having managed and developed programs that have generated millions of dollars in revenue. Those who implement her recommendations have increased revenue as much as 600% by using her creative and common sense marketing tactics. She has managed programs for the US Army, Kirkwood Community College and the University of Iowa. Tracy founded Middle Road Enterprises to connect trainers with CE programs while providing a unique customer service experience. Prior to working in education, Tracy was an Emmy Award winning journalist, having worked as a writer and producer in the Midwest and Los Angeles.

Tracy has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a Masters from St. Ambrose University. She lives in Riverside, Iowa with her husband and two children. She is passionate about work-life balance and is part of a coalition to certify balance-friendly organizations throughout the United States.

Emily Creech

Emily Creech is a Client Strategist at MoreVisibility, a leading Internet Marketing Agency located in Boca Raton, Florida. Emily oversees search engine optimization, search engine marketing and social media initiatives for clients around the globe and across a variety of industries such as education, real estate, insurance, health care and non-profits. She is personally certified by Google as an AdWords Qualified Professional and has a proven track record of helping clients improve website rankings, boost traffic and generate revenue.

Joy Gendusa

Frank Colantonio

Frank Colantonio is Director of Continuing Education at The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants in Toronto, where he and his team of 25 are charged with the development, marketing and delivery of CPD programs and products to CAs, Lawyers and other business and finance professionals across Canada and internationally.  The current portfolio of products includes 13 Conferences, 30 multi-day, in-depth courses, 4 self-study programs, and over 300 e-Learning modules.

Frank has over 20 years of experience developing and marketing successful CPD products in the areas of taxation, financial reporting and corporate governance, corporate finance, IT and forensic accounting. He has been instrumental in evolving the Department from a provider of traditional, paper-based classroom programs to a provider of public and customized blended learning products utilizing a mix of web-based and classroom methodologies, and marketing the portfolio with a mix of traditional direct mail, e-mail and other web-based tools.

Chuck Havlicek

Chuck is President and founder of ACEware Systems, Inc, a software company whose only business is developing Registration Software for continuing education programs. He has over 30 years of experience in the operation and management of continuing education. Prior to starting ACEware Systems, Inc, Chuck spent 15 years working in university continuing education. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he served as a conference coordinator and director of the Management Development Certificate Program.

After moving to Kansas State University, he served for three years as assistant director of conferences. He has served in a number of leadership roles in continuing education associations, including the ACEAN (Adult and Continuing Education Association of Nebraska) and the University Continuing Education Association. ACEware Systems, Inc. was founded in 1988 and has over 500 clients worldwide.

Kirko Papajanis

"The prevalence of events as a key source of new business have made event invites 'noise' in people's inboxes," says Kirko, "Our clients have found that Guided Voicemail calls from your prospect's own sales rep, or from the event keynote speaker strategically accompanying email and direct mail teasers, invites, and reminders can increase your attendance by as much as 800%, and, in many cases, start the relationship building process before the event takes place"

Kirko has been a leader in the promotion of voicemail as a means of effective B2B communication and event promotion since joining Boxpilot in 2001. Boxpilot's Guided Voicemail service uses live agents in a Toronto-based call center to navigate business phone systems, insuring your message reaches ONLY your intended target. Since 2001 over 1400 companies have used Guided Voicemail to promote events, increase email and direct mail response rates, and boost sales productivity.

Stewart Gandolf

"Stewart always says that getting Doctors and other health care providers to respond to marketing is like trying to get Fidel Castro on the phone." Come to the panel discussion and take away Stewart's practical advice on how he effectively combines content marketing, pay-per-click, organic search, newsletters, landing pages, strategic relationships, and email marketing to fill his seminars. Also, learn how to turn your seminar attendees into consulting clients."

Over the years, Stewart has effectively used seminars to attract over 10,000 health care clients, ranging from private practices to multi-billion dollar corporations. He is a frequent author and speaker on the topic of health care marketing. Today, Stewart also acts as HSS's primary Creative Director and Business Developer. Stewart knows how to take proven marketing principles and apply them to successfully build professional practices. Do a "Google" search on Stewart Gandolf and you will see that his expertise fills your screen with links.