Chapter focus Nevada.

• Author: Westfall, Christopher
• Position: FEI NEWS

FEI's Nevada Chapter is focused on growth and creating engaging programs for old and new members.

We invite participation of chapters for this section. To have your chapter profiled, contact Managing Editor Christopher Westfall (cwestfall@financialexecutives.org) or 973.765.1095.

Area Covered: Nevada

Year Founded: 2000

Number of Members: Approximately 60

Member Companies Represented: Expedia Inc., Bally Technologies, Hooters Hotel and Casino, Riveria.

Annual Dues: $300 for Executive Level

Meeting Schedule: The Nevada Chapter hosts 10 meetings a year. The chapter also hosts an annual golf outing for members and prospects.

What are some recent special events?

Nevada is a small chapter, and we are intent on growing by advocating our exclusivity. Most of our membership is from Las Vegas, a town dominated by hotel and casino workers. The professional community is a minority and the financial executives are a subset of that.

We are trying to cultivate membership by emphasizing that each event is the only place to be for senior-level financial executives in the valley.

How does the chapter create quality events and programs? FEI President and CEO Marie Hollein attended a chapter board meeting to help us navigate through the challenges of growing a small chapter. She emphasized that successful programs are planned six months to a year in advance. With this advice, we held a program meeting in which we developed a list of speakers to target for the year ahead. Our sponsors were helpful in calling contacts to book presenters in advance.

We promote our meetings as "the place to be for the inside story from prominent leaders in our community, which is something that you can't get from the newspaper or the Internet."

We ask speakers join our guests during the cocktail hour to mingle. This year speakers included a former two-term U.S. senator and governor, a nationally-known journalist, the director of McCarran International Airport and the regional director for the Canyon-Agassi Charter Schools Facilities Fund.

Two events include spouses or significant others--a holiday event in December and one in the spring. These events are "date nights" for couples with not as much professional networking as at our regular get-togethers so that the guests can become familiar with our organization. It's our subtle way of "selling" the benefits of our chapter.

Last October we had our first golf outing, which we will now host annually. Many professionals play golf and...