2024 ACEC Midwest States Conference

ACEC MSC Header

Link to add this event to your calendar: Calendar invite

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12
10:00 AM-12:00 PM - Site Visits of KC Streetcar (KCMO) or Buck O'Neil Bridge (MoDOT)
Street Car Tour:

10:00-10:30 AM - Presentation - KC Streetcar intro and overview of Main Street Extension project
10:30-11:00 AM - Depart (on foot) for Crossroads SB Streetcar stop
11:00-11:45 AM - Walking tour in vicinity of Pershing & Main - View new crossover, compare and contrast stops across the street, show mobility lane and dedicated track, etc.
11:45-12:000 PM - Depart NB on Streetcar from Union Station

Buck O'Neil Bridge - attendance limited to 20 people - Details forthcoming

11:00 AM-1:00 PM - Registration for Conference
1:00-3:00 PM - CEO Roundtable Discussions for Small/Medium & Medium/Large Firms - Small/Medium: 1-50 employees; Medium/Large: 51+ employees (2.0 PDHs)
Description: The purpose of this program is to discuss business practice issues in a roundtable format. Discussion will include areas such as liability, profitability, ownership, human resources, business development, information technology, etc. (We will split into 2 groups by firm size in separate rooms for this discussion.)
6:00-8:30 PM - Welcoming Reception & Dinner
Description: We will start the evening with a reception at Percheron which is the hotel's rooftop bar. Named for the famed horses of the once Pabst brewery, join your fellow ACEC members in the sun, connect and enjoy the city’s most iconic views. After the reception, dinner will be at the hotel in the main ballroom. ACEC will be joined by Donny Dollarhyde, The Kansas City Wise Guy, who will share stories of the role of the mob in Kansas City through history.

THURSDAY, JUNE 13
8:00-8:45 AM - Breakfast Keynote Speaker (.50 PDH):  Quinton Lucas, Mayor of Kansas City
Description: Born and raised in Kansas City’s East Side communities, Mayor Quinton Lucas has served as the 55th mayor of Kansas City since 2019. As mayor, he led Kansas City’s adoption of the nationally acclaimed zero-fare transit initiative, which maintains a fare free public transit system on bus and rail transit citywide. Mayor Lucas also championed the resurfacing of hundreds of miles of Kansas City’s streets and sidewalks, addressing a year’s long maintenance backlog in every Kansas City neighborhood.
8:50-9:20 AM - KC Global Design Initiative (.50 PDH) - Speaker:  Ashley McDonald, Managing Director
Description: KC-GDI is a collective of design community firms and leaders from across the KC region working together to activate the region’s design community around common goals – to amplify the KC region’s ability to remain a destination for top talent in architecture, engineering and design technology.  Building on their strengths enables the region to attract, grow, and retain globally competitive businesses. They strive to create a robust industry concentration, a sustainable workforce pipeline and status as a global destination for industry expertise and innovation.
9:35-10:35 AM - Taming the E-mail Beast (1.0 PDH) - Speaker:  Randy Dean, MBA, The E-mail Sanity Expert®
Description: Key Strategies for Your Managing E-mail Overload Every day, managers and professionals are getting buried under a continuing stream of both useful and useless email. Without a system for getting “control of the beast”, professionals spend much of their work (and personal) time spinning wheels and feeling highly unsatisfied. If you would like to get control of your e-mail “beast”, you should attend this program featuring specific tips for Outlook and Gmail users, but applicable to ANY e-mail user. Learn a proven system for taming your e-mail account, with strategies for keeping your inbox efficient and under control by building and administering a personal "e-mail processing system”. Learn how to get rid of all those “quick little” e-mails once and for all, prioritize your most important messages, and mitigate or even eliminate much of that annoying junk and spam. Finally feel on top of your e-mail and related activities, rather than feeling it is on top of you.
10:45-11:45 AM - Managing and Leading Great Staff & Team Meetings (Including Virtual!) (1.0 PDH) - Speaker:  Randy Dean, MBA, The E-mail Sanity Expert®
Description: Well-managed meetings are highly effective tools for keeping people and teams informed and productive, but they don’t happen by accident. Unfortunately, many teams and organizations report far too many unproductive meetings causing a drain on productivity and staff morale. Businesses and leaders need to make sure that their meetings are effective, productive, and consistently create value for the organization. If you are a leader that wants to plan and run more effective meetings using the least amount of valuable staff time and resources, this program provides you with the tools and strategies you need to plan, manage, lead, and end effective, efficient meetings. And, with the new rise of virtual tools and meetings due to the coronavirus outbreak, we will also cover several tips and strategies for making your virtual meetings work better and create value.
12:00-12:45 PM - Lunch Program on Business Continuity Cyber Incident Response Planning (.50 PDH) - Speaker: Mary Erchul, Executive Director, ACEC Business Insurance Trust
Description:  Cybercrime is big business and expanding every year. Technology and the pandemic have driven a dramatic change in the economy and in the way, organizations conduct business. The required dependence of businesses on digital technology has also created a new class of digital risks that are constantly evolving and can strike faster with more severity than traditional risks. Mary will discuss six crucial steps to developing a Cyber Incident Response Plan including: Preparation, Identification & Analysis, Containment, Eradication & Recovery.
1:00-2:30 PM - ACEC Kansas Meeting
1:00-2:30 PM - ACEC Missouri Meeting
1:00-2:30 PM - ACEC Oklahoma Meeting
2:45 PM - National WWI Museum & Memorial Tour - (limited to first 50 registrants)
Description: The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri was opened in 1926 as the Liberty Memorial. In 2004, it was designated by the United States Congress as the country's official war memorial and museum dedicated to World War I. The museum focuses on global events from the causes of World War I before 1914 through the 1918 armistice and 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Visitors enter the exhibit space within the 32,000-square-foot facility across a glass bridge above a field of 9,000 red poppies, each representing 1,000 combatant deaths. For those attending the tour, please meet in the lobby at 2:45 to load buses. The buses will pick tour participants up at the museum at 5 p.m. and take them to the ACEC dinner.
5:15-8:30 PM - Reception & Dinner at Jack Stack BBQ (101 W 22nd St. #300, Kansas City)
Description: Set in the burgeoning Crossroads Art District, this historic Freight House location will wow you with its 25-foot ceilings, fireplace lounge and indoor and outdoor private dining. ACEC members will feast on Sliced Beef Brisket, Barbecue Bone-in Chicken, Polish Sausage Medallions, Burnt Ends and Pork Spare Ribs along with traditional BBQ sides. ACEC members who do not attend the WWI Museum Tour should meet in the lobby at 5:15 PM. We will walk a short 5 minutes to and from the restaurant.  There are Ubers available if you prefer to get to the reception/dinner and/or back to the hotel on your own. The hotel address is 2101 Central Street, Kansas City.

FRIDAY, JUNE 14
8:00-9:15 AM - Breakfast Program on Driving Financial Wellness at Work (.50 PDH) - Speaker: Lydia Zabrycki, ACEC Retirement Trust
Description: Employees are desiring financial wellness help from their employers. Employers who are successful in meeting their needs are winning in the retention and recruitment race.
9:30-10:30 AM - Bytes and Boundaries: Why You Need an Employee AI Use Policy (1.0 PDH) - Speakers: Laura L. Malugade & Eric Locker, Husch Blackwell
Description: Employers know that artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay, but so many are grappling with the initial question: where do we even begin? Recognizing the benefits of AI, many companies have decided that allowing employees to use generative AI in some capacity is the path forward. Some even argue that resisting the use of AI in the workplace will result in your organization becoming an inevitable casualty of the “AI Revolution. While there is certainly value in embracing AI innovation, it must be balanced with the potential legal and reputational risks. Recent studies have shown that 57% of workplaces did not have an AI use policy or were still developing one, and 17% of employees were unaware of whether there was one in place. These numbers are likely even higher. Learn from experts in the field about the preliminary issues your company's AI policy should address.
10:45-11:45 AM - Seminar Program (1.0 PDH) - TBA

A printable copy of the schedule of events will be posted here as soon as all the speakers are confirmed.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION:

Conference Registration: To register for the conference, click here. The early-bird deadline to register to get a reduced rate is Tuesday, May 28, 2024.
Early-Bird Registration Fee (register by May 28): Members - $695.00; Spouses/Guests - $400.00; Child (18 & over) - $175.00; Child (17 & under) - $150.00.
Registration Fee (register after May 28): Members - $720.00; Spouses/Guests - $425.00; Child (18 & over) - $200.00; Child (17 & under) - $175.00.

hotel

HOTEL INFORMATION:

CONFERENCE HOTEL: All events will be held at the Crossroads Hotel, 2101 Central Street, Kansas City, MO 64108, unless noted otherwise. We have a block of rooms at the hotel. Call 866-531-2400 and refer to our group code “ACEC MSC” to get our group rate of $229.00. You can also book your sleeping room online. The regular deadline to reserve your sleeping room is Thursday, May 2, 2024. The Kansas City Royals baseball team is having home games that overlap our meeting dates. We strongly urge you to make your sleeping room reservations by Friday, April 12, 2024. To see more information on the hotel, click here.

To see the Kansas City Area Guide, click here.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

Airport: The Kansas City International Airport - Positioned in the Heart of America, Kansas City’s central
location makes it easily accessible by interstates and highways, as well as a quick flight from just about anywhere in the nation. And once you arrive, everything is within reach. For more information on the airport, click here.

Cancellation Policy: Full registration will be refunded, less a $50 processing fee, if written notification is received on or before June 5th. No refunds will be granted after this date, however, substitutions are welcome.

Recommended Attire: All events are business casual.