Laura L Palker

I started my career as a quality control inspector for United Technologies inspecting airplane engines, then moved into sales. After reading the book Megatrends by John Nesbitt and learning about the mastermind group and the Information Age, I started an organization that brought together small businesses to share information and ideas and create new ones to help them prosper and support their growth plans. A member of my organization who owned an exhibit company that designed and built custom exhibits for trade show floors asked me to help reorganize their company during the AT&T divestiture. I worked with them from the ground up, physically organizing and creating more efficient workspaces, operationally creating systems and processes, and from a human resource perspective integrating two companies they bought. After 2 years they were profitable, and then I drank the Kool-Aid and opened my own company. I started working with three divisions of MetLife, Dale Carnegie, Sotheby's, and William Doyle Galleries out of New York City. When I started to grow too quickly, I decided to merge with another company in New York City rather than invest $100,000 to build a shop. Then 23 years ago I started Trade Show Solutions Center. I was accepted into the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program and doubled my business the next year, then the pandemic came and basically put us all out of business. We did just under a million dollars last year, and with our growth plan in place we were ready to take off when two of our large clients were sold. I was very happy for our clients, but we lost the accounts. Understanding the challenges of being nimble enough to stay in business and the importance of diversification to sustainability has been critical. During the pandemic, the event industry lost over 3 million people, and we were an invisible industry. We worked to collaborate with other organizations to create the Federation to get us recognized in the coding systems that make up our economy, working with the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Department of Labor on apprenticeship programs to get our trades listed in the O-Net codes and working to modernize the NAICS code system. This work enables us to negotiate with banks, classify ourselves, and statistically prove our economic impact and the career pathways and high-paying jobs we offer, so we can fill the pipeline at the high school and community college level to build career inspiration, create career readiness, and offer pathways for advancement so people can live and be afforded a very healthy lifestyle.