Alan Kleinfeld
Senior Director, Arrive Management Group
Chicago, Ill.
Describe your job.
As a result of 20-plus years in meeting management and 20-plus years in public safety, I am a director of meetings, focusing on event safety. I help planners who want to reduce risk and keep their attendees and stakeholders safer.
What made you choose the meetings and events industry?
The industry chose me. After finishing my undergrad, I worked as an office manager, which included twice-yearly events. Although small, these events introduced me to the world of catering, budgeting, and audiovisual and showed how great a feeling it is when everything goes right at an event.
How did you get started, and what got you from there to today?
When 9/11 occurred, we were living in the D.C. area. I was an in-house planner for a scientific association at the time. My reaction to the attacks was that we should always be better prepared, so I joined the local police department as a reserve officer. During the next 20 years, I held various law enforcement positions, nearly all of them as a volunteer. For a short while, as I kept a foot in the meetings industry, I was a full-time public safety officer. During my time in law enforcement, I was certified in or trained in fingerprinting, breath analysis, dispatch work, basic firefighting, animal control, and basic law enforcement, and I am an ATV instructor and an NCIC [National Crime Information Center] instructor.
Getting from there to where I am today involved lots of hard work, relationship building, learning, and professional development.
Staying engaged and being curious also helped me follow the meeting professional path.
How do you keep up with industry trends, changes, and cutting-edge developments?
Three words: reading, reading, reading! That usually means social media articles, emails, blogs, and anywhere I can find and read relevant information. Being part of organizations like MPI, PCMA, and the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP) is a great benefit.
What essential skills should every industry professional possess?
Industry professionals should be able to see things from different perspectives and points of view. You should be willing to listen to new ideas from different people. Get out of your comfort zone once in a while and allow yourself to grow both personally and professionally.
What is the philosophy or approach to work that gets you through stressful times?
■ Breathe.
■ Show gratitude.
■ Don’t take it too seriously; everything will work out.
What is the best professional advice you ever received, and what advice do you have for others in the industry?
The advice I was given is the same I would provide to others, and that is to remember we are professionals doing a tough job. We have our hands in a lot of cookie jars. We wrangle small details while keeping an eye on the big picture. We need to learn when to lead and when to follow. We are the CEOs of our events. Also, don’t work harder; work smarter.
Most meeting planners already have a full plate, so safety might be something they consider sharing with or delegating to others, either internally or externally. Be bold and outsource or get help with your event safety. Planners should know the necessity of event safety and what their attendees may want or need to be safe. I suggest planners include safety as part of the RFP process when looking for venues and, when available, conduct site visits with security staff familiar with the venue. For citywide meetings, build relationships with local first responders.
I think the biggest safety trends will soon evolve around climate change, cyber safety, and active threats/behavioral issues. We already see huge disruptions in travel and group business. We can still gather, but we’ll need to assess how the weather will influence our events and plan and spend accordingly.
Cyber issues will be an ongoing battle. As soon as we find a way to stop the hackers and bad guys, they find a way around it. Planners don’t need to become IT experts; they just need to make sure whoever is doing their IT is on the ball. This doesn’t apply only to our internal IT, but also to those of our suppliers.
As we continue to deal with the mental exhaustion of the pandemic and all of the perceived threats and scares our brains have interpreted over the last few years, active threats—often caused by someone with a behavioral issue—will most likely increase in the coming years.
Describe your biggest professional success:
My biggest professional success is my recognition as a volunteer. Those hours of combined personal and professional success mean the most. Through the years, I have volunteered with PCMA, MPI, SGMP, and AMP. I was lucky to be recognized for different distinctions, such as Meeting Planner of the Month and Newsletter of the Year, of which I was the chair. Plus, there’s my volunteer time in public safety. I earned the Government Services Award and was part of the team that won Volunteer Group of the Year. What makes the Government Services Award extra special is the nomination comes from full-time, paid police officers—an indication of how much they valued my volunteer work.
Share an anecdote about a meeting or event that did not go as planned (something funny or odd) and how you handled it.
I got a call from hotel security once reporting that one of my attendees had gotten high on marijuana and mistakenly crashed the buffet at the hotel staff cafeteria. He was politely escorted out and directed to our meeting, where we had food he could consume. It was a head-scratcher of an incident.
What is the best part of your job?
I love being onsite. It’s also great when the meeting attendees have the experience they expected—or better—and no one realizes all the little and huge things going on behind the scenes. The absolute best part is teaming up with the right people.
What do you like to do in your free time?
What is free time? LOL! I do enjoy playing golf, traveling, and reading mysteries.
