NEWS AND NOTES FOR THE MEETINGS AND CONVENTIONS INDUSTRY

Plug and Play The war is over, and technology won. For more, see p. 30.

SPECIAL REPORT Behind the Scenes in Boston I

n the minutes after the second bomb went off at the Boston Marathon, James Rooney was not concerned with being the executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA). He and his

wife were standing at the finish line on Boylston Street, waiting for their niece, who was running in the marathon, and in the immediate aftermath of the blasts, he was just another Bostonian trying to make sure his family was safe. “I saw the explosions and then I was in the middle of the chaos,” Rooney said in an interview with Convene two weeks later. “We weren’t all

› PCMA.ORG

The Center of Things Boston transit police on Boylston Street, just outside the Hynes Convention Center, right after the bombings.

ON THE WEB

Learn more about The One Boston Fund, which has been established to “help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013,” at onefundboston .org.

JUNE 2013 PCMA CONVENE 15

DAVID L. RYAN / THE BOSTON GLOBE / POOL / EPA / CORBIS