Laura Alexander, director of Sales & Marketing for the Owensboro (Ky.) Convention Center, began her career in one of the most basic sales positions you can have. During summer breaks from college—where she was working toward a sales degree—she was employed as a cashier at the Executive Inn Rivermont in town, a 600-room hotel with about 100,000 sq. ft. of meeting space and an upscale restaurant. After graduating, they offered her a sales job, and she was brought on full time.
The hotel was eventually demolished in 2008 to make way for the convention center, where Alexander now works, giving her a certain sense of ownership of that particular site.
“This spot on the river is my home,” said Alexander, who was also married on the same spot and was voted as Venues Today’s 2016 Generation Next Readers’ Choice award winner.
During the six-year gap between the demolition of the hotel and the opening of the convention center, Owensboro was completely off the radar for conventions and meetings. That meant a big job was in store for Alexander once Spectra Venue Management hired her in 2012.
“Owensboro didn’t have anything to really drive businesses and conventions to come here,” said Alexander. “No meeting space, no nothing. We really had to get back into the rotation and go after those businesses.”
And because there is no CVB sales arm in Owensboro, the brunt of the work fell on Alexander’s shoulders.
“She’s selling the destination, she’s selling the building and really markets the entire community as she’s out selling conventions,” said Dean Dennis, general manager of Owensboro Convention Center. “She’s a person who really owned the market and brought it back from nothing.”
She was the first person Dennis hired, and the craziness of opening a building hit Alexander almost immediately.
“Dean had gone out of town, because he was trying to move here,” said Alexander. “Within three days of me being hired, I had to get a proposal together for the International Bluegrass Music Association, for their big thing they do in Nashville. All I had was blueprints. I had to go up there and measure to find the square footage and see how many people could fit in those rooms, and I had like two days to do that.”
One of the biggest challenges was getting the building ready for the grand opening gala with only a day to flip the entire convention center.
“We literally got the keys to this building, and all of our furniture and everything couldn’t get in until two or three days before,” said Alexander. “We had to completely flip it from a different event. Our grand opening was scheduled for a week after another event that was coming in right before that. From that event we had about a day to completely flip the entire building and move into the building, we’re talking the kitchen, plates, everything. We had 2,200 people here for our grand opening gala. It had a dinner, it had a concert component and different set ups for the rooms. The craziness of that was memorable, but seeing everyone in the community come support it, and in one location, was just amazing.”
Part of Alexander’s work ethic is her eagerness to learn. She recently shadowed Dennis after a concert to learn about settlement sheets. She’ll often go to the director or operations or food and beverage to learn about those processes as well. She said everything she learns informs her on the front end of sales.
“I love to learn, and I’m a geek when it comes to podcasts,” said Alexander. “When I go on a work trip that’s a couple hours away, I’m listening to leadership podcasts. I love continuing that knowledge. If I don’t know the answer or I don’t know how to do something, I’m going to watch someone and learn how to do it.”
That passion and enthusiasm is what Bob Schwartz, vice president of Marketing with Spectra Venue Management, first noticed about Alexander, even through the phone. He said she’s proof that leadership can come from any level of an organization.
“Her passion and attention to detail was really remarkable through a convention marketing and sales conference call,” said Schwartz. “Soon enough she was leading the conference call, she was the moderator and leading people to participate and discuss new initiatives. It happened over time, but she was always a participant on the call and, as importantly, had something to contribute to the call. Being in Owensboro it was inspirational because she was doing a lot of innovative things in that market that other venues could replicate.”
Both Schwartz and Dennis said they wouldn’t be surprised to see her as general manager of a building one day.
“She is one of those people you don’t have to worry about getting the job done,” said Dennis. “You can say this is what needs to happen, and it happens. That’s important to our next generation, having those people you can rely on and know they’re going to see it through. She was a great hire for us as a company, and we know she’s going to do good things in the industry moving forward.”
For Alexander, the saying, “choose a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life” has always stuck out in her mind and has now become a reality.
“I will be doing this even after retirement,” said Alexander. “If I won the lottery tomorrow and had millions of dollars, I would still be at work, because I love doing this. It doesn’t even feel like work. Even on those days when I’m having a bad day and nothing is going right, I still enjoy my job.”
Part of that appeal is the variety and opportunity to be creative that the job provides.
“It’s not the same thing every day,” said Alexander. “No group is exactly the same. It doesn’t become monotonous. You’re able to change things up year after year, even if you have the same group, a lot of times you can add a different component and it will completely change it. I love being creative in this sense.”
Even with the challenges of working with groups that aren’t used to event or meeting planning, Alexander said she wouldn’t want to move out of this industry for anything.
“I really enjoy working in the events industry. You either love it or hate it, and you’re going to know that within the first few months,” said Alexander. “There are great sales people out there that don’t like this industry because they prefer a tangible product. I love it.”
Interviewed for this story: Laura Alexander, (270) 687-8926; Dean Dennis, (270) 687-8921; Bob Schwartz, (215) 389-9477