By: Rhett Asher, Vice President, Asset Protection, Data Security & Crisis Management
Food Marketing Institute
I’m always honored and intrigued at the level of commitment our executive volunteers demonstrate toward creating valuable and challenging experiences for FMI members and conference attendees.
Recently members of the Food Marketing Institute’s (FMI) Asset Protection Council and Risk & Safety Council both descended on FMI’s newly renovated headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, to challenge the organization and themselves to “think differently” about tackling critical industry initiatives and continuing to raise the bar in 2016.
Our jam-packed agendas included dissecting the recent Asset Protection conference, which took place earlier this year in Memphis, to discover even more ways to uniquely position itself and add value to the industry’s Asset Protection, Risk Management and Safety professionals. The councils are laser focused on understanding and building on a comment made by a recent FMI AP conference attendee, “The FMI AP show is where the ‘cool kids’ come to truly get valuable professional development.”
The councils also discussed developing FMI industry objectives such as new research initiatives, how to continue to tackle critical challenges such as cybersecurity, other threats against the workplace and legislative / compliance issues affecting the industry.
To show our gratitude for their time and contributions, we provided council members some personal enrichment with special executive briefings. Nina Easton, FORTUNE Washington Columnist and Senior Editor, TV commentator, and bestselling author, spoke to the Risk & Safety Council on “5 Things you don’t know about Washington.” It was a captivating insider’s look at Washington politics. The Asset Protection Council was treated to a discussion with Bon Cusak, Managing Editor of The Hill and national policy and politics analyst. He also shared valuable insights into the Washington political scene with his presentation, “A View from the Hill.” Both speakers delivered insightful perspectives on the upcoming presidential race as well as in-depth and exclusive views of candidates on both sides of the aisle
The meetings capped off with evening tours of Washington’s celebrated national monuments. Many people have the chance to see these landmarks during daylight hours, but it was a distinct pleasure for all of us to see them “all lit up.” The evening tour included the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Korean Memorial, the Iwo Jima Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial and the National World War II Memorial. The aforementioned speakers and this slightly surreal, yet awe-inspiring tour was our way of giving back to all those council members who work so hard to further our mission and support the daily activities of our organization.
Check out how these innovators truly are keeping it cool by attending the FMI Asset Protection Conference March 14 – 17, 2016 at the Westin La Paloma in Tucson, Arizona.