Bernadette Bannister, UM's Director for Community and Professional Services and Event Planner, Instructs Students

"Success is in the details." Bernadette Bannister shared with the 401 Event Management class on September 2nd and 9th. Bannister is a guest instructor for the Entertainment Management Program. Her expertise with large scale events offered students a glimpse into her meticulous profession of planning all aspects of large scale events.

Bernadette Bannister (B.A., English, University of Maryland) is the Director of a Technical Assistance and Training Center focusing on Public Health and Environmental Management Programs. She oversees projects in tobacco use prevention, public health emergency preparedness and response, obesity and diabetes prevention, wildfire urban interface mitigation, and leadership training. She is an experienced trainer, facilitator, technical writer, and a successful proposal and grant writer.

Her 26 years professional experience includes: Director, Prospect Associates, Silver Spring, MD, Conference Services Department responsible for 100 nationwide health-related conferences/year; Subcontract Manager supporting an NIH/CDC national diabetes education partnership program; Assistant Project Manager, SAIC, Washington, DC, on program management support for NASA's planetary science-related missions including international logistics for U.S./Russian collaborative space science activities; public outreach programs for EPA, NASA, and the Army; and Development Coordinator, Craighead Wildlife-Wildlands Institute, Missoula, MT.

During her two day guest lecture she taught students how to develop and define an event profile including the purpose, desired outcomes, goals and objectives, and the target audience. She explained the importance of a starting out with a tight budget and how an event can be controlled by managing the budget. She also detailed the cost assumptions, proposals and contracts that are involved with an event. She gave the class other key pointers such as developing a contingency plan in case anything goes wrong.

Bannister ended the lecture asking students, "What will it take to accomplish this task?"