Three Years at NATE!

I\’ve got a milestone to celebrate this weekend – today marks three full years working at NATE! Time sure does fly right on by.

In preparation for this post, I took a look back at all that has happened over the last year and wanted to share a couple of the highlights.

As usual, I get to travel a few times a year with my job at NATE. It\’s taken me to all kinds of new places over the years, and I got to check off two new states last fall when I attended our Regional Conference in Kansas City. I flew into Kansas City on the Missouri side, and the conference itself was on the Kansas side.

The Regional Conference is one of my big projects each year, so it was great to attend this event and see it all come to fruition. It\’s also a wonderful learning opportunity, not only for the attendees to the conference, but for myself as well. It only helps me grow more in my position the more I know about our industry.

NATE UNITE – our annual tradeshow is another huge part of my job, and it\’s always a lot of work, but also a good time! This year, it brought us to Raleigh, North Carolina. I\’ve been to Raleigh before, but it is a very nice area, so I was more than happy to be back for the show. Of course, a big ol\’ snow storm blew through the week we were there, so it definitely had a little bit of an effect on how the show went.

For the most part, the show itself went on as normal – although I\’d say the last day was a bit quieter since there were quite a few people leaving early to try and beat the storm. I still got my annual in-person WIN meeting in, and it was wonderful to get together again with this awesome group.

Unfortunately, the snow storm caused our golf tournament to get cancelled, so we did not get to see all the work on that come to fruition this year. But, I\’m excited to make next year\’s tournament even bigger and better to make up for it.

Every other year, NATE hosts a Congressional Fly-In event in Washington D.C., and this year was my second time helping to put it on. A lot of time and effort goes into making this two-day event possible, but it is easily my favorite event that we do. This year, we had about 90 individuals from NATE member companies – representing 30 different states – gather in Washington D.C to meet with their respective Members of Congress and their staff. We had 125 meetings scheduled over a day and a half! Like I said, it gets to be a bit crazy, but it so rewarding, and I love seeing the changes and action that comes out of these meetings.

Also at our Fly-In this year, we officially kicked off our NATE Tower PAC! I\’ve been a lot more involved with our Legislative and Regulatory Council over this last year or two, and it\’s exciting to see things like this happen. It\’ll be interesting to see what we can do with the PAC moving forward and what positive changes can happen.

If you haven\’t heard yet, NATE is also getting a brand spanking new office building! We attended a ground breaking ceremony earlier this summer, and construction is currently underway. The goal is to move into our new space in the Spring, and I\’m so excited to see it all come together. We were shown all the designs of what it is going to look like, and it\’s going to be a beautiful new space. And it\’s the same distance from my house, but a lot closer to Starbucks – so win, win, win! 😉

In between all those big moments, were a lot of days filled with blood, sweat, and tears and I wouldn\’t change any of it. I really do love my job, and I\’m excited to continue growing and being more involved with the Association. It doesn\’t feel like work when you enjoy what you do!

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Nelson