Corizon in Miami

This week was the first Corizon Leadership Training session held since the merger of our company. It was held at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach, FL, and was the first time leaders from both offices (Brentwood and St. Louis) were able to all get together in one place to meet, learn, discuss, and spend time getting to know the teams from both offices.

I made signage for each event (reception, general session, etc.)
and my palm tree logo was on all the giveaways

We left for the airport at 6:15 Monday morning, and when we first got to Miami, we went to our rooms, dropped off our stuff, and headed back down to the lobby. My room was great! It had a beautiful view of... the hotel rooms across the way (haha!), but I could see the water if I stretched my neck both directions. :o)

View to the LEFT of my room                                                                   View to the RIGHT of my room

We were starving, so after just a few minutes we went to lunch with the Business Development team at a nice property restaurant with a beautiful view of the BEACH!

BD Lunch on the beach terrace: LtoR - Mike Viers, Patrick Turner, Holly Rawnsley, Lauren Balmer, Jon walker, Pam Mays,
(my empty seat), Michael Miller and John Dallas (not BD, he's an Ops guy)

I presented to the Operations Team (Stuart Campbell, COO) regarding our legacy PHS Client Survey. It was about a 45-minute presentation, and my first time to meet many of these folks and I was a little nervous. It went well. (WHEW!) Then we had the welcome reception, which was again the first time I got to meet a lot of people, especially from St. Louis.

Top Left: Holly Rawnsley, Dale Braden (CPMO), Pam Mays, Mike Viers, Brandee Norris. 2nd top Left: Stuart Campbell (COO), Sally Powers (interim HR), Rich Hallworth (CEO). Bottom Row #1: Joy Lloyd (Maryland), David Thompson (Michigan), Holly Rawnsley. Bottom #2: Dwayne Phillips (C3), Stuart Campbell. Bottom Right: with Katie West (Legal), & Holly Rawnsley.

Afterward (starting at 10pm), I was trying to help Brenda Henderson, the CEO's assistant finalize the powerpoint for the general session the next morning, because I helped design (not create) the animated graphic that we were trying to import, and it was causing the technical difficulties.

We worked and worked, tried FOUR different laptops, YES, FOUR different laptops, but due to the hotel's firewall and other technical issues, we could not get to our information. Long story short, at midnight the CEO finally called our head IT guy, and he came down and spent another hour with us, and finally knew enough techie stuff to work around it and get us set to go. We went to bed at 1:30am...(yawn!)

The next day, Tuesday, started at 7am, and included the general session where Rich Hallworth (CEO) did his presentation, which included the graphics and animation. Although just a small part of the massive presentation, they were a huge HIT! (thank you, thank you)

Watch it below...it's only one minute long.

The Business Development/Marketing presentation was that afternoon, and I had about a 10-minute part of that presentation. It went well. I have to say, the Marketing department is the funnest department. I got to give updates on the Company Store, the Client Survey, Branding efforts, Media Relations, Trade Shows, etc.The meetings as a whole were very informative, with great stuff shared regarding the direction of our company going foward.

Then Tuesday night was the Caribbean Reception on the patio by the pool, and they had a mix-up with the food and ran out, so Holly Rawnsley, Pam Mays and I walked down the pier by the water about 3 blocks and had dinner there. Jon Walker and the BD guys joined us later.

This was our view walking along the pier...beautiful!

When we returned, we heard that we "missed all the fun" because after everybody got enough alcohol in them, people started jumping into the pool fully clothed. (Well, most of the men took off their shirts.) We heard LOTS of stuff, which I won't detail here, but let's just say I'm very happy to have been gone during all the "fun."

I happen to know the photographer, so here's SOLID EVIDENCE of why I will NEVER touch alcohol:

Do you think they even remember how much "fun" they were having?

Again, glad our BD Team missed the party.

I went back to my room a little later, and answered a bunch of e-mails, worked on the computer until about 1:00am, then up again at 5:30to be down to the 7am breakfast. We are filming little snippets of people introducing themselves and answering questions for a new feature on our website, called "CorizonTV" which will launch in November. I worked with the videographer during all the breaks and meals to get the filming done.

Then Wednesday was full of more meetings, more filming, and everything ended at 3pm; we headed to the airport, caught our flights, got home around 8pm, and Steve picked me up at the airport and took me to get something to eat at one of our favorite Tex-Mex spots, Chuy's. I was soooo exhausted! Came home, hugged on the boys for a little while, and basically collapsed into bed around 11pm. Zzzzzzzz