Originally published in the April 2016 Conference Edition of the CSMFO Magazine

WOW, what an amazing conference in Anaheim at the Disneyland Resort. I hope those of you that were able to attend our 56th Annual Conference, “A Finance Life for Me”, enjoyed it as much as I did. Over the past month I have received so many compliments on how wonderful the conference was. I wish I could take all the credit, but I can’t. There are so many ingredients that make a conference successful, so I thought I would write about each one of them in this President’s message.

Great People 

A successful event is not possible without great people, and CSMFO members came in force to enjoy the conference together. We had a record attendance this year with 1300 attendees. I originally thought the conference was great because I was President, but as you can imagine, many people reminded me it was because of the people. Thank you to all the attendees, your involvement made the conference a huge success.

Fantastic Program & Educational Content

The Conference offered over 40 general and concurrent sessions covering a wide range of technical and non-technical topics. Whether it was Michael Coleman giving an update on California finance, or David Bean giving a GASB update, or Neil Kupchin on personal leadership, there were plenty of top-notch sessions for all municipal finance professionals. A program of this caliber is not possible without two groups. First, our speakers. Their commitment and expertise is what makes the conference program possible. And second, the CSMFO Program Committee. Their dedication and hardwork year after year produces a program that is second to none. Thank you to: Viki Copeland (City of Hermosa Beach) for her leadership, Ronnie Campbell (City of Camarillo) for his support and vision, Mary Bradley (City of Fremont) for her wisdom, Harriet Commons (Retired) for her dedication, Drew Corbett (City of Menlo Park) for his fresh perspectives, and Margaret Moggia (West Basin Water District) for her amazing ideas.

Inspirational Keynotes

One of the enjoyable parts of putting on the conference is determining the keynote speakers. Usually hours are spent identifying potential speakers that convey the theme of the conference. This year we had Jon Gordon as the opening session keynote talking about the Energy Bus. I want to thank David Cain from Fountain Valley, as it was his recommendation to have Jon as a speaker. What a great choice to start us off. On Thursday, we had a lot of fun with Jon & Owen of The Passing Zone. I want to thank our CSMFO volunteers: Gilbert Punsalan (City of Thousand Oaks), Stephen Parker (City of Stanton) and Pamela Arends-King (Union Sanitary District). It was Pam’s recommendation to have The Passing Zone perform, so a big “thank you” to her. Friday morning’s general session featured Dave Childs talking about the importance of Ethics. And finally, no better way to end the conference than to have Neil Kupchin help us take what we learned and apply it to our agencies after the conference. Thank you to our keynotes, hopefully you also found them inspirational and memorable.

Memorable Events

What conference is complete without networking and having fun? For those that were able to get away a few hours early from work on Tuesday, we offered golf or tennis. The golf tournament was played at Black Gold in Yorba Linda, while tennis was played at the Anahiem Tennis Center. Thank you to Mark Alvarado, Anna Van Degna, and Lily Ng for all their work on these events. Also, thank you to the many sponsors.

Tuesday evening was the President’s Dinner, where we recognized past presidents and the current CSMFO leadership for their dedication to CSMFO. Thank you to David Cain, Pamela Arends-King, Elena Zaretsky, Stephen Parker, and Marisa Anticevich. Wednesday was our conference reception where there was plenty of networking and catching up with old friends. And of course, Thursday night with the after-hours Party in Disneyland. No better way to attend a conference in Anaheim than to visit the park and go on a few rides. I did try to have the pirate song changed to a “Finance Life for Me,” but Disney would not budge! Hopefully you had a great time at these events.

Generous Financial Support

Our commercial members and sponsors are truly an integral part of CSMFO’s success. We had over 100 sponsors and exhibitors for the 2016 Annual Conference. I would like to thank our generous sponsors and exhibitors for their commitment and support of our conference. It is this support that helps make our Annual Conference so successful year after year.

Added Value 

One of the focuses for the Program Committee is to enhance educational content every year. This year we had two outstanding pre-conferences, Enterprise Resource Planning with Phil Bertolini and Terry Hackleman, and Fundamentals of Municipal Revenues with Michael Coleman and Lloyd de Llamas. In addition to the pre-conference sessions, we had two free early bird sessions with Chris Thornberg, Economic Update, and Alan Milligan & Chery Eason from CalPERS. Clearly, these sessions added value for those that are able to get away from the office a little early.