Guest Post: Opening General Session Recap

by Ellie Collinson, The Raben Group, and Jennifer Neuhaus, NECA staff associate, Midwest Region

While I wasn’t sure how many people would make it dutifully to this morning’s General Session after last night’s spectacular opening party on the Navy Pier—complete with fireworks! I was impressed by the energy and enthusiasm of the full house at Arie Crown Theatre this morning.

NECA President Milner Irvin spoke about the many initiatives he and NECA’s staff have taken on to improve the NECA member experience during his tenure as president, most notably the leadership conference call series and advances in labor relations. Many NECA members will also miss Milner’s “From The President’s Desk” column published monthly in ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR. As he so aptly put it, progress has been made and progress will continue to be made under incoming president Rex Ferry’s leadership.

Speaking of progress, the rest of the program included presentations by Jerry Nixon, NECA’s Political Leadership Council Chairman, about the impressive growth of NECA’s political action committee, ECPAC, to nearly $2 million, making ECPAC one of the Top 50 Federal PACs and amplifying the voice of NECA’s Government Affairs program. Jerry, the ever consummate fundraiser, invited interested NECA members to visit with Lake Coulson and the Government Affairs Team at the NECA booth throughout the convention and to consider a gift to ECPAC as an investment in their business’ operations.

And the highlight of today’s general session was of course the truly titillating performance by The Second City, complete with NECA-inspired sketches about competing bids and apprentices.

They had contractors laughing hysterically with their skit about the project manager dealing with his delinquent boss, who was willing to do anything to win the job, even if it meant dropping three zeros from the overall cost. Second City even offered crowd participation as part of their performance, in which audience participants Chris and Jean added a little bit of their own improv to the show.

The Second City group was established in Chicago in 1959. It was the starting point for some of the most famous comics of our time, including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner. The next time I get roped into playing charades, I hope I get a member of Second City on my team!