Member Spotlight: Hilary Wickes

Organization: AMR Management Services

LinkedIN URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilary-wickes/

Other than improving your Zoom Meeting skills, what have you learned (or learned to excel in professionally) since COVID-19 began?

The biggest thing for me has been learning how to evaluate which events are best for in-person and which events are best for virtual. Last year, I brought back a training event that had failed to be financially viable in-person but was extremely successful as a live virtual training.

Who are you outside of work?

I am myself when in the outdoors. I love to camp, hike, ski, flat water kayak, or read a book by some water. I am a mom to a toddler who is awesome. I am married to an Archaeologist. I love spending time with my family, which is why I moved back to Indiana.

Name a silver lining in your own work experience since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Because remote work became so normalized, I was able to take on some side work for various clients to learn more about other events, which has shown me that I’d like to do more of that in the future. In general, I’m very pleased with the remote work movement, though orgs and companies must be intentional about connection and collaboration.

What is your proudest professional accomplishment to date?

The first event I organized as the Event Manager was a pretty special moment. I’m also proud that I advocated (and still do) for getting training to be better at my job, through organizations like MPI.

What are some of your favorite things about being an MPI member?

With 5 years of experience, I’m still relatively new to the meeting and event planning industry, but I continue to be surprised and impressed with how to MPI community welcomes me. The connections are the biggest piece so far.

When do you plan to go on your next vacation and where do you want to go?

I have them all planned for this year! We will visit Tucson, AZ, Oahu, HI, a lake in Wisconsin, and Islas Mujeres, MEX. We leave for Tucson in 1.5 weeks.

What is the greatest place you have ever visited?

My heart belongs to Peru.

Something people don’t know about you:

I’m pretty good at the Etch-a-Sketch.