plenary ‘I Love What I Do. I Really Enjoy the Details.’ WHAT’S YOUR STORY? Cori Dossett, CMP, CEM

Lineage ‘Both of my parents were successful entrepreneurs. I always had that in my blood.’

“I said, ‘All right, sign me up,’” Dossett

said. She never looked back. Seventeen years later, Dossett is now president and owner of Conferences Designed, a Dal- las-based meeting-planning company. She spoke with Convene about how she quickly took to the meeting-planning industry and eventually decided to hang out her own shingle:

I became fascinated as a large exhibi- tor at the shows — like how they were put together and how they were run. I very quickly realized it was the path I wanted to pursue. The company I had started with, in the meantime, after a few years, was bought out by a larger company. The office in Houston ceased to exist. I moved to Washington, D.C., to get involved with the association world. I learned the association side of trade shows through my job as the trade- show manager at the American Physical Therapy Association [APTA] and was there five years. Loved it.

A

fter she graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in English, all Cori Dossett really wanted to do was teach high-school English. But when a technical-writer position

became available at a small biomedical engineering company based in Houston, she leapt at the opportunity. After only several months on the job, her boss approached her about filling in for the company’s trade-show manager, who was moving. Dossett was game, but she had a question first: What’s a trade show? Her boss pitched it as an opportunity to travel and to work with every department in the company, organizing exhibit-hall participation at 40 shows per year, all over the world.

But after that time, there weren’t a lot of growth opportunities. I was getting bored. I loved the association and the work that was going on; I just felt like I needed a change. I jumped into a direc- tor of meetings position at a very small association in D.C. I was there a year [on staff] and then did some contract work with them.

I think the idea [to strike out on my own] really hit about that time, because I started doing some contract work for a couple of different associations. I really enjoyed being able to come in, integrate, solve a problem, and be a part of the team. But I don’t think I was quite ready to jump into it wholeheartedly. After a couple of years of bouncing around and doing contract work, I really wanted to go back to an office full-time. I missed

28 PCMA CONVENE SEPTEMBER 2013 PCMA.ORG

PHOTO BY SARAH TOTH PHOTOGRAPHY