Well, in 2014 they are serving nine organizations with thirteen meetings in six countries on three continents! Wow! No wonder I can’t keep up with them.
PMG is still a small company, but with an outsized impact. We have 17 staff members, and 4 of those are part-time. But, with those 17 people we provide full service association management to 4 associations that are national in scope and to 4 associations that are international in scope, and we provide meeting management for one-time meetings on average of once each year.
In 2014 we have managed, or will have managed by year’s end, meetings that range in size from around 50 people to more than 1700 people; that range from 2-day educational conferences to full scientific research meetings of 5 to 6 days duration; that are located in 7 different U.S. states, and 5 other countries, in North America, South America, and Europe.
We have provided assistance with strategic planning; high level support for officers, executive committee members, and board members in their governance activities; support for committee functions; technical support for membership databases, registration systems, abstract management systems, and websites; management support for one highly ranked existing journal and development assistance for another start up journal; and we have managed financial affairs for budgets of as little as $50,000 to as much as $3.5M.
Some have asked me how we manage to do so much and make it seem so effortless. I have a hard time convincing some of the people who ask that question that the answer is actually quite simple. We only hire good people; who will commit themselves to our clients and to our clients’ missions; who have a strong work ethic; and who are nice, likable, friendly people. Then we develop extensive, detailed task lists for each group and meeting we manage and we check off each task as it is done. The result is that because of the hard work that goes into completing the task lists, the work gets done with impressive results. And, those nice friendly PMG people just make it seem like it is effortless!
Who would have believed six years ago that this little company we started would have developed such a global presence in so short a time? Well, at the risk of sounding immodest, I would have — and did! I remember telling Sarah Timm in 2008, our COO and the person who makes this company work the way it does, that in five years she would be well known around the world for her excellence in association and meeting management. I could not be more proud to see that prediction come to pass.
