Cheers to 15 - A trip down memory lane

If necessity is the mother of invention, then I suppose RGI events falls categorically into that designation. If you strip away the philosophy in the veneer, 15 years ago, I needed a job. And now here we are.

I had returned home to Virginia after nearly a decade working in entertainment and special events in Los Angeles, and as I started in on my job search, I quickly became disenchanted. The environment of experience and innovation I had just left had prepared me to fully step into the world of strategic special events, but as I looked around, I could not find a firm in the Washington D.C. area that was doing anything on the level to which I had been producing. I could not square throwing away that experience to take just any old position. I’ve always been far too ambitious for that – but, I was running out of time…and needed a paycheck.

If I only knew then what I know now.

Fifteen years later, it’s hard to sum up exactly how the experience of building and running this business has impacted me in a few paragraphs. There have been dizzying highs and catastrophic lows. I’ve learned more about myself than I ever thought there was to learn. I’ve lost a parent, gained three children, and as we all eventually do, I have now thoroughly turned into my mother. I have been lucky enough to get up every day for the past 15 years and make magic, bringing dreams to life, making fantasies concrete and bottling fairy dust. I still get the same butterflies before a show that hooked me on this type of work nearly 25 years ago. This business has been my life‘s biggest challenge and my best friend.

They say if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. Now, I don’t know about all that because what I do is awfully hard work, but I genuinely love it. I love to have been put in a position to teach the many team members we have mentored over the years about this business and about life, and I am so honored and humbled by the trust our truly illustrious clients – titans of industry, famous faces, the most impactful change-making organizations in the world – put in me and my team, to move the needle forward for their organizations.

Fifteen years has disappeared in the blink of an eye, and I can’t wait to see what we do with the next 15. Here’s hoping all of your dreams come true.