After we celebrated our 30th anniversary in 2023, we found we met milestones with affiliations with our stakeholder groups. One of the first we joined was NCSL—National Conference of State Legislatures. This year will be our 25th year as an exhibitor at its Legislative Summit and our 19th year as a member of the NCSL Foundation.

Why is this important to an organization whose mission it is to bring state legislators together? Because that is where we meet our clients. I know their mission is to meet the legislators… But the Summit is a great way to meet a lion’s share of our clients, which definitely helps us understand the work they do.

In 2024, eight of us from State and Federal Communications will head to Louisville, Kentucky for this year’s Summit. You should see our schedule. Between the summit sessions, exhibitor hours, SGAC member lunch, SGAC Professional Advanced Class, late afternoon receptions for incoming and outgoing NCSL executives, various trade association receptions (shout out to WASRG), the very popular SGAC late night (I have tickets to this hot event), and the great NCSL events at The Kentucky Center, and the closing reception at Churchill Downs.

Let me just say this is not a conference for the weak. We meet every morning for breakfast to discuss our day and divide the conflicting events.

The best is when we meet our clients at our exhibit booth. We “stateandfederalize” people with our popular red, white, and blue lanyards, take a quick photo for future issues of Compliance NOW, and just generally catch up.

We take our relationship with NCSL seriously. Just last week, CEO Tim Storey met with Jean Cantrell and me when we happened to be in Denver for another one of our stakeholder groups, ALEC. We definitely complimented him on the work done to bring more than 5,000 people to Louisville and meet the foundation goal for the year. We also spoke about concerns about the reduced number of days/times for the exhibitors. He listened and we hope to see some improvements in the future.

When the budget for NCSL is one of the top groups we are involved in, we will always make sure we can communicate our concerns. If you are going to Louisville, you will not have to look hard to find us! Hope to see you.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Z. Bartz
@elizabethbartz