Last week was a very exciting week. I had the privilege to go and visit 4 of our chapters that are located in the northwest region. I apologize that this is a very long entry, but here's a recap of the visits.

Columbia River Chapter

My first stop was with the Columbia River Chapter in Portland, Oregon. The flights out to Portland went perfectly. All the legs arrived early. Actually, I arrived "extremely" early. I showed up in Portland on Monday evening and they were expecting my on Tuesday evening. I guess I was overly anxious to get there.

This worked out very good because it gave Joel Barker, Chapter President and I a chance to have some breakfast and discuss the chapter. Joel was telling me that the chapter has a good base of members, but does not have very many that attend their meetings. Sound familiar? I know most all the chapter leaders scratch their heads wondering why they can't get more people to attend the meetings. I know there is no magical answer, but to just keep having meetings with good, relevant content as well as fun opportunities to allow people to develop networking relationships and just keep inviting them. Joel transferred to the Portland area several years ago from a very active chapter in Chicago. So he knows the tremendous benefit of attending these meetings and to keep them fun. We attend meetings all day long and the last thing we want to do is attend another meeting. HFTP chapter meetings need to be an event that is both fun and informative.

Well, I'm not sure if having me come and speak qualifies as either fun or informative.  But, there was a great turnout of about 15. This included a few "potential" members as well. It was located at the top floor of the Hilton Portland & Executive Towers. A beautiful view of the Portland skyline combined with a great dinner created the environment for a great meeting. I hope that my information and thoughts sparked a new or renewed interest in getting involved with our great association. I encourage all the other chapter leaders to send Joel some notes of encouragement as well as any tips and tricks that you've used in the past to inspire interest.

Chapter Officers:
President – Joel Barker - email: Joel.Barker@hilton.com
Vice President – Rita Bergmans
Treasurer – Leslie Joanne Fordham
Secretary – Kaye Conklin

The next morning I was in a cab heading towards the airport and just sat there and admired the beautiful day and clear view of both Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. It was breathtaking. Also, while sitting at the airport, I got to see some Air Force fighter jets take off with flames blazing. It was an awesome sight as well as the power of those jets shook the windows of the airport. I stood and watched like a little kid. :-o

British Columbia Chapter

The flight up to Vancouver was great. Clear skies gave a good view of the mountains during the flight. I arrived and noticed all the modifications that the city has done to the airport getting ready for the world to arrive. Luckily, they haven't shown up yet, so I was able to walk through all the way up to an agent and then straight out to the curb. Arrival gate to passenger pickup wasn't but around 10 minutes. Awesome!!

British Columbia Chapter President Romy Herrera picked me up and took me to a nice lunch at the Hyatt Regency where we talked about how the chapter was doing. They have had some very good meetings over the past several months with as many as 80 attendees when they discussed the new sales laws for the British Columbia area. That's exciting. After, I we got done, I went down to check in. I noticed that they had several self-checkin kiosks. Two were beside the front desk and three of them were actually attached to the front desk. I'm always curious about the use of the kiosk for checkin, so I asked the front desk agent if anyone uses them. His response to me is that "no one uses it and it usually does not work anyway." He told me that they were not located in the right place, which I agree, and it doesn't handle moving a guest to a clean/vacant room if there room is not ready. A note for the software developers of these systems.

The meeting was an afternoon reception meeting that had a very good attendance, however not quite 80. I guess I'm not as exciting as tax law.   There were around 30 and I do appreciate all that did attend. The chapter changed their normal lunch meeting to an afternoon reception to accommodate my travel schedule. Thank you for being flexible and I hope you found the presentation enlightening.

After the meeting, I got to go to dinner with the chapter officers at a very nice restaurant at the Sutton Place Hotel, in one of the few 5-Star hotels in Vancouver. The food was great; however, the company was fantastic. I understand why the British Columbia chapter is having such good success. The officers have a great time together, which creates a great team to get things done. This is a great model to follow. Have fun and lots of it.  Just remember to keep it legal please. 

Chapter Officers:
President – Romy Herrera - Email: r.herrera@coasthotels.com
Vice President – Vivian Waung
Treasurer – Neil Holm
Secretary – Lawrence Iu

Back to the airport and a really, really long line to get through the US Customs. If you are not familiar, you clear US Customs before you leave Canada. You've got to love it when there's a long line of people and they only have 2 people working. Well, I know I didn't love it. Then once I got through the first line, then there's a second line. Of course I choose the wrong line. Once I got in line, half of the agents left on break while new agents came to service the other line. Word of advice, don't follow me in a line.

Greater Puget Sound Chapter

Once the US allowed me back in, the flight down to Seattle was uneventful and quite short. The Greater Puget Sound Chapter President Jessica Vint picked me up at the airport and served as my tour guide for the afternoon. First, she took me to lunch at Juno's and had an extremely awesome hamburger. Yeah, I know, I should not have eaten that, but man was it good. In order to help compensate, we walked around Pike's Market where I got to see the Throwing Fish store. That was pretty cool, but smelly. It was a good afternoon where we talked a lot about the chapter and of course drank some Starbucks.

The meeting that evening was at the Hotel 1000, a very technologically advanced property. There are a lot of things in their guestroom that we've displayed in our Guestroom 20X in the past. Of course, as with all technology, there is room for problems. One thing I discovered when I got to the meeting room to set up that you actually needs a power cord to make it work! I apparently had left my cord back in Vancouver. I have to admit, I was pretty frazzled. Of course, I make one of my bone-head moves in front of one of the HFTP Technology Hall of Fame members Jon Inge.  As with most hotels, there's a box of power supplies behind the front desk and we were able to find one that worked, but it took a while. Therefore, I was not able to fullfill my duty as the "designated hugger" that Lisa Funk had asked me to do. But, I don't think it would be have been the same anyway. No one can replace her.

Jessica started out the meeting with an update on what things are going on, demonstrated their new website (www.hftpwa.org) using the new templates provided by HFTP Global, and highlighted the chapter mantra for 2010 of "Stoke the Fire of Hospitality Education." It was a very motivated talk, so I wasn't sure what I was going to be able to add.  We had a great dinner and then I shared with the 45 members that were in attendance. There were a few members of the South Seattle Community College Student Chapter. It's always great to have the students active with us old people. We need to be in the role of mentor to them. It was a great meeting. I do, however, apologize to Dennis Miller who had to hear the same jokes he had heard down in Portland a couple of nights before. But I do appreciate having a "groupie."

Chapter Officers:
President – Jessica Vint, CHAE - email: jvint@thehotelgroup.com
Vice President – Marney Zellers, CHAE
Treasurer - Shawn I. Bloom
Secretary - Valerie Coty

The next morning, I was off to the airport again. I was riding and could see Mr. Rainier. It was majestic and it got me thinking. That mountain reminded me of our goals that we should all be striving for. We may be in the valley right now, but we should put those mountain peaks clearly in our horizon and continually move forward towards it. As with the shark, we have to continuously move forward or we die.

Southern Alberta Chapter

I landed in Calgary, early I might add, and like Vancouver, I went straight through customs without stopping my stride. This was good since I was arriving only an hour and a half before the meeting was to start. I was picked up by the Chapter Secretary Brian Verners and we went to the meeting at the Regency Palace Restaurant. It was a great turnout of about 30 members with is snowing outside.

They bestowed me with a great honor. I am now an Honorary Calgarian. I went through the entire ceremony and then they presented me with a certificate and a beautiful white cowboy hat. This puts me in a very prestigious group including President George Bush. However, I didn't see CNN anywhere.

They presented me with this award before I spoke, which was a good thing. They may have re-considered after the speech.  But, everyone seemed to enjoy the discussion and there was a lot of interest concerning the certification programs. They've been promoting the certifications quite a bit, which is evident with one of their members, Louise Asselbergs, just passing her test for the CHAE a few weeks ago. GREAT JOB!!

It was a great meeting and even though it was late by the time I got done, imagine that, there was a good discussion and several questions about how to make their chapter even better and draw more IT professionals and club controllers into the chapter. I was encouraged about the chapter's desire to make the chapter reach out to the other segments of our membership. Keep working at it.

Chapter Officers:
President - Esther J. Fullen - email: controller@charltonresorts.com
Vice President - Derek Stickle
Treasurer - Elizabeth Evans
Secretary - Brian Verners

Now it was time to come home. I travel to the airport and start the whole US custom thing once again. The line wasn't as bad this time and I made it through the first counter in decent time but I got to the security line and they wouldn't let me take my rolling bag as a carry on. Which I have to admit, I was a little upset seeing I carried the exact same bag through from Vancouver just two days before.  They make me put it in a size-wise measurement unit that my wallet would barely fit in. Apparently they didn't know who I was so they sent me back to the counter to check the bag. The walk back allowed me to calm down, slightly, and the agent printed a check back slip and we put it on the bag. I went on through the process and took the plane down to Minneapolis. After I landed and was getting my stuff together and was putting my checked bag claim ticket in a safe place I noticed that the ticket agent checked my bag to a Gary Price going to Nashville, not Terry Price going to Asheville. Now what are the odds of that happening? I guess that was a lesson to not lose my temper. I need to review that section of my seminar about "kindness."  Anyway, the bag naturally didn't make it, but it finally made its way to home.

It was an amazing week and it always energizes me when I get around a group of HFTP members. That's one of the biggest benefits of our association to have the opportunity to gather with a group of people that share a common interest and experience. It gives us the opportunity to help and encourage each other. That's just good stuff.

Hope to see you soon!

Light is a very powerful thing.  Even the smallest glimmer can make a huge difference in a dark room.  When we are surrounded by darkness, we all look for some source of light, any light to provide us with direction.  I feel that there is a the light that is beginning to shine in the darkness of our economy.  For most, it is still a small flicker, but it is there.  We just need to focus on it and start walking towards it.

I noticed that glimmer of hope when we attended the 2010 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas.  I was pretty cool that over 100,000 of my best buds met me there to check out the latest in technology being introduced into the consumer market.  It was quite a party.  This was the first CES that I've ever attended and it was quite a sight.  The hall was filled with hundreds of vendors with larger than life booths.  The vendors didn't seem to pull any punches as they put together very elaborate displays to dazzle the imagination and make their little piece of the show floor look larger than life.  And the floor itself had a life of its own.  The excitement of the attendees created an energy that was contagious.  To a tech guy, this was like being at Disney World.

I have to admit, it was hard to stay on mission.  Brian Garavuso, Chair of the Guestroom 20X Committee; Frank Wolfe, CEO of HFTP; Steven Stout, Director Meetings and Events for HFTP and I were there to search for the latest and greatest technologies for the 2010 version of Guestroom 20X to be displayed this coming June 21 thru 24 at HITEC in Orlando, Flordia.  However, there were distractions galore.  I really don't think there is a place for Earthquake car stereo speakers in the guestroom, but I have to admit, I was fanaticizing how that would fit in my Ford Expedition.  My wife didn't agree.

Vendors pulled out all the stops to catch your attention as you walked through the floor.  They resurrected Elvis and Marilyn Monroe, had all-leather dressed racecar pit crews and barely-dressed Caribbean models to bring your attention to their booth.  Well, that's what people told me.  I really didn't notice myself.  However, I was quite distracted by the cute little microphone in the Sony booth.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

If there was a a theme of the show, I'd have to say it was everything TV.  Small TV's that fit on your jacket like a name tag up to the massive projection screen technology that make your living room into a full scaled theater.  Of course, thin is it.  The new LED TV's are as thin as 3/4 of an inch and can be hung on the wall like a painting.  And the picture is amazing on these units.  Amazing and eco-friendly.  These new TV's use up to 40% less power than the previous LCD models.  LED TV's have been around for a while but this year's twist was the new 3D version.  These TV's in conjunction with a 3D Blue-ray player produces a true 3D experience right inside your living room.  You still have to use the glasses, but the quality is amazing.

Of course there were many other technologies that we saw and many would be great additions to the Guestroom 20X.  I can tell you what they are, you'll have to come to Orlando and see them yourself.  It will be well worth the trip.

I believe the success of the CES show is a small light that the economy is turning in the right direction.  2010 will probably be a little tight for everyone, especially since most of the budgets have already been set.  But the upturn gives us much hope for 2011.  Many projects that have been on hold for a while may begin to be put back on the books by then and we need to make sure we are ready for them.  HITEC 2010 will give everyone the opportunity to plan for the technology projects that will be coming our way, so make plans to attend.  You don't want to be caught uninformed.

As the title says, we have a glimmer of light, so let's set a path to walk towards the light and climb our way out of this dark room.

Terry

Ralph Bellamy once said, "Everything ends. But there are always new beginnings." 

Most all of us were somewhere with loved ones and friends as we counted down the end of 2009 and celebrated the beginning of 2010.  Why do we do that?  What's different about that midnight verses any other midnight?  One of the reasons is we celebrate a since of renewal with the beginning of a new year and close the history books on the old.

As 2009 came to a close, it also marked the end of a very dear HFTP family member, Mrs. Roz Trieber.  Roz,  health educator and creator of HUMORFUSION was mother of our very own Jerry Trieber, CPA, CHAE, CFE, CFF, former HFTP Global Board Member and a frequent speaker a HFTP events.  Roz was the author of “The Joy of Living…The Journal That Inspires You To Live Life Laughing,” (2007), “Live Life Laughing: An Innovative and Imaginative Approach to Living A Healthier, Happier and More Prosperous Life” (2000), co-authored 43 Ways To Keep You and Your Taste Buddies Happy: Outrageous and Hilarious Humor Laced Between 43 Healthy and Delicious Recipes (2000), and Life After Schmaltz (1990).  She shared her positive attitude as a speaker at our HFTP conferences and has touched many lives and hearts of our HFTP family.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to know Roz very well.  I consider that a loss.  However, I know beyond a shadow of doubt that she was an amazing lady.  I can tell by the stories that I hear from other HFTP members and see the expressions on their face when they are talking about her.  She was well loved.  I can also tell by her amazing son Jerry.  He's a giant of a man in a small frame.  His character, integrity, and good nature are a reflection of her in him.  Many of you have stories about your encounter with Roz and how she affected your life.  I'd love to hear them.  Please post a comment to this blog and share your story.  I also know how much it would mean to Jerry and his family and let's all keep them in our thoughts and prayers.

Now it is 2010.  The beginning of a new year and for the Price family marked the beginning of a new life together when my oldest daughter Leah married Isaiah Adams on January 2nd.  That was probably one of the most emotional days of my life.  I believe I experienced every form of emotion possible:  from worry to relief, from mad to happy, from sad to joyful, from rushed to relaxed, from funny to serious, etc.  You name it; we probably felt it at some point during the day.  As with most all wedding ceremonies, everything fell together at 4:59 and the wedding started at 5:00.  It was a beautiful ceremony.  We had it at the Country Club at The Grove Park Inn where I work.  I must say that the staff and the chefs did an amazing job.  If you're looking for a place to hold a wedding, they really know their stuff.

The ceremony began and I saw my little girl come down the staircase, the same little girl that I was holding in my arms in the hospital nearly 22 years earlier.  I told her back then that I would always be there to take care of her and to love her.  Now, I had to take her by the arm and walk her down the aisle and give her away to another man that is now to be the one to take care of her.  That was extremely hard for me.  I was holding my composure, somewhat, on the outside, but was all to pieces on the inside.  But, I know that she loves him very much and he loves her very much and as Mufasa would say on the Lion King, "That's the circle of life." 

As I mentioned before, the ceremony was beautiful.  We laughed, we cried, we were proud seeing that beautiful young lady stand there and dedicate herself to her new husband and new life.  After the reception I had a chance to have my little girl all to myself one last time.  She picked out this terribly-sad song called I Loved Her First by Heartland.  It was a tear-jerker, but I didn't mind.  For that brief moment I was back in the hospital holding my little girl and telling her how much I loved her.  Now they are on the road.  Isaiah is a long-haul truck driver and she is travelling with him and living in the truck.  They are happy, so I am happy.






I hope 2010 offers some amazing new hope for you as well.  I am excited about the possibilities and the opportunities that I have to see many of you at a future chapter visit or HFTP event.  Together we can brighten each others world and share the HFTP PRIDE.

THANKS
Terry

INTRODUCING
Mr. & Mrs. Isaiah Adams