To modify an old saying, behind every great event is a great woman. At NRPA, that attribute belongs in large part to Amanda Hersey, the association’s director of conferences and point person behind our biggest event of the year: NRPA Congress. For the past three years, the self-described “over-volunteerer” has worked hand-in-glove with our in-house conferences team and onsite local host committees to put together a conference that we know has deep influence on attendees and our industry as a whole. Now that everyone’s settled back in at headquarters following the October conference in Charlotte, we caught up with the married mother of four to get a better sense of her work and life outside NRPA. 

Parks & Recreation Magazine: What drew you to the type of work you do here at NRPA?

Amanda Hersey: I think I have been a planner my whole life — I’m not very spontaneous! I loved planning my wedding, dinners, family holiday gatherings and birthday parties, and I am the chairperson for the Fun Fair where my children attend elementary school. Doing something I enjoy as my job and getting paid for it is even better. I started my event career in 2003 working on consumer-based Log and Timber Home Shows and immediately knew I had found what I wanted to continue to do! 

P&R: We’ve just finished the 2014 conference — describe your state of mind ramping up to the event and immediately after. How did you feel about the way things went this year?

Hersey: I’m always very excited to get onsite and get working. I LOVE the live part of the event-planning process. It’s very rewarding to see the event you’ve been working so hard on come to life. Having such a great team of people to work with (NRPA staff and the Local Host Committee) plus a lot of Starbucks really helps me get through it. We tried a lot of new ideas in Charlotte — education areas on the exhibit hall floor, new networking socials and the upgraded app to name a few — and we got a lot of positive feedback onsite and in the survey afterwards. I know there is always room for improvement, but I felt Charlotte was a huge success!

P&R: What’s the most challenging aspect of your role at NRPA?

Hersey: They say you can’t please everyone, but I will always strive to make sure that everyone who attends the NRPA annual conference feels it was a valuable experience and that they walk away with great ideas, feeling motivated to go back and incorporate them into their workplace.

P&R: What’s the most rewarding aspect?

Hersey: I like to help people. By far the most rewarding aspect of my job is meeting members and hearing stories about how the conference makes a difference to each attendee’s professional development. 

P&R: What do you consider to be the top elements that really “make” a conference?

Hersey: Innovative and relevant content to share with your members is a top element. Also, making sure you have a balanced conference schedule is very important — you need the right mix of education and networking. Not all conferences include exhibits, or have the volume of exhibits that NRPA’s annual conference does, but I think it is a tremendous value to the attendees. NRPA’s conference exhibit hall is really fun, lively and just an amazing display of top-of-the-line products and services. Bringing all of those companies together in one place is truly a benefit for our members. Behind the scenes, having the right internal team members in place is key, working side by side with the Local Host Committee and having true business partners in your vendors are the top elements that make a conference.

P&R: The 2015 conference will be held in Las Vegas — can you give us any teasers that might entice folks to begin making plans to attend?

Hersey: We will be celebrating 50 years next September, and our initiative for Las Vegas and the next 50 years will include a lot of member engagement to help shape the future of the conference and determine what elements are most important to the field. So, I encourage everyone to participate in the surveys, polls and various feedback opportunities in the coming months — your opinion matters!

Samantha Bartram is the Associate Editor of Parks & Recreation Magazine.