Ann Becker and Associates has provided full service meeting management for the annual gatherings of two NSF programs, the Engineering Research Centers (ERCs) and the Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRCs) for almost 20 years.  ABA consults with the NSF program staff and grantees to keep the agendas fresh, engaging, and productive by refining the meetings’ objectives and introducing innovative program design.  This has resulted in successfully integrating the disparate needs of audiences who formerly held separate meetings and to the structuring of opportunities for multi-site Centers to make personal connections that further ongoing technical cross-center collaborations.  One specific outcome of the 2006 NSF/IUCRC Annual Meeting was a workshop for interested I/UCRCs and representatives of NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE).  ABA created an interactive forum designed to increase IUCRC and CISE collaboration and better inform CISE personnel about emerging industrial needs and priorities.

CFED (formerly Corporation for Enterprise Development)

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Ann Becker and Associates provided full service meeting planning to CFED for over a decade.  For its 2006 National Asset Building Conference, the CFED planning committee made up of both top management and conference staff, retained ABA to work with them to focus on organizational priorities such as increasing revenues and efficient deployment of staff resources.  ABA has encouraged CFED to view the conference from the perspective of the organization’s strategic direction, rather than as a stand alone event, and to tackle the resource management opportunities presented.

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Illinois Facilities Fund (IFF)

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ABA has worked with IFF on several of its conferences and summits. The expertise provided by Ann Becker in each project is similar:  1)  provide a guided marketing strategy for the Conference, 2) work with the staff to design an interactive program in which childcare and education providers and practitioners can solve problems collaboratively with technical experts and 3) assist with the delineation of conference implementation roles and responsibilities among staff and contractors.

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Institute for Health Services Research & Policy Studies at Northwestern University

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The purpose of the National Workshop to Reduce Asthma Disparities was to bring together a diverse group of experts to identify current evidence and best practices, and identify critical gaps in knowledge needed to reduce disparities in the treatment of asthma patients. ABA developed an agenda which spurred attendees to consider this issue in depth, suggest and evaluate creative solutions that might best address the critical gaps identified, and develop a skeletal action plan to implement the solutions. ABA’s innovative event design resulted in participants and session leaders engaging in a series of lively interchanges that tested and refined elements of the action plans, thereby enhancing the likelihood that the plans would be successfully implemented.

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Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS)

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ABA consulted with INCS as it planned its 2005 “Success by Design: Best Practices Conference" and also guided the organization in the post-event evaluation.  The organization was urged to deepen its first level review of the overall conference and encouraged to reflect on how to structure any future event without overtaxing its capacity.