By Carrie Boatman, CMT, AHDI-F
President, AHDI-West

Don’t you just love that word?? It’s one of those words that sends chills down my spine. As a kid, I could not believe it took 12 months for Christmas to come again. Not to mention my birthday…well, back in those days I looked forward to birthdays. You want to know what I’m looking forward to now? Austin…the Music Capitol of the South! And the city will be even more special because lots of my friends and colleagues will be there. Some of them I’m meeting for the first time. The Annual Conference and Exposition (ACE) is a great place to meet up with people I work with and IM on a daily basis. Of course, I also get to see a lot of my long-time friends.

Not to mention, all the great lectures that are on the schedule for this year. The exhibit hall. The networking. All-in-all, I find ACE to be almost as rewarding as Christmas! Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a lot of annual meetings. Each one seems to take on a character of its own. Sometimes I think I know how a meeting will be…only to arrive and find out the latest buzz and voila! The meeting totally changes. This will be the first ACE since the change went into effect last year that makes this meeting the beginning of our committee/Task Force structure. That’s different. It’s the first time the officers will change place actually at this meeting. It’s our first time in Austin.

And this year AHDI has added a Leadership Summit. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this. I have truly missed the opportunity to have face to face time with other component leaders to discuss issues, challenges and share successes.

I hope you all are getting ready to attend this year as well. It’s going to be an awesome meeting!