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BUSINESS NEWS WILTON N. HAMMOND, ENGINEER, 1927-2016 Wilton N. Hammond, the former chairman of multidiscipline A/E/P firm Carter & Burgess , died April 6, 2016, due to illness at age 88. A memorial service was held April 15th at Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth with Dr. Ted Kitchens officiating. Interment was at Greenwood Memorial Park. Hammond was born on July 4, 1927, in Lampasas, Texas, to Wade and Grace Newton Hammond. After high school, Wilton enrolled at Texas A&M University. His time at A&M was interrupted when he entered the U.S. Coast Guard in May 1945, serving until June 1946. Hammond returned to A&M in the fall of 1946 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering.

Hammond worked for the Texas Highway Department in the Fort Worth District in Granbury and Stephenville, specializing in the farm-to-market roadway projects. He later served in the State Bridge Division in Austin. In 1955, Hammond was promoted to Fort Worth District design engineer. In March 1956, Hammond joined Fort Worth- based Carter & Burgess. His career at the firm spanned 52 years, and during his tenure, he served as president and chairman, and was chairman emeritus at the time of his retirement in 2008, shortly after the firm was acquired by Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. During his tenure with Carter & Burgess, Hammond helped the organization evolve from a local engineering and planning consulting firm to

a 3,300-employee, nationally recognized multidiscipline design corporation with 26 offices throughout the United States. From 1966 to 1972, Hammond served as the firm’s principal-in-charge and design manager in the joint venture with Forrest & Cotton of Dallas to design a major portion of site development, runways, aprons and terminal infrastructure improvements for the new Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Hammond was active in many civic, fraternal, and professional organizations. He enjoyed travelling in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific with his wife of 59 years, Camille, who preceded him in death in 2012.

BERNIE SIBEN, from page 11

in and out within 10 minutes, and may even make dinner plans with others. If you host an evening event, be sure to have 6-10 cards to give special attendees inviting them to join you for dinner later that evening. Otherwise, you could end up losing every prospect to someone else’s hospitality. The answer to question #9 depends on the level of hospitality you choose. If you just want someone to attend, who can wander the exhibit floor, giving out business cards and brochures, and maybe giving out dinner invitations, one person might be enough. If you take a booth, you need at least two, so the booth is always attended. If you choose to host a hospitality suite, you can always have additional people there just to help in the suite without having them give up work days and paying for them to attend the show. As for question #10, make sure your estimate also includes the salaries of anyone who attends for all the travel and attendance hours they spend, as well as the cost of your give-aways and any hospitality expenses. For question #11, I like to have one or two inexpensive items that I can keep on the table, and one more expensive item that I keep under the table and give only to those people who spend some time with me telling me about their firm’s needs and letting me share information on how my firm can help with those needs. These are the interactions more likely to result in an extended conversation later, an opportunity to present or propose, or even a contract for a specific project. Whether you decide to put a representative on the exhibit floor, host a booth, or host a hospitality event, make sure to invite the people you listed in the answer to question #5. If you’re just having one or two people attend, you can still contact someone, express a desire to meet them for 10-15 minutes, and offer to “buy the first cup of coffee.” If one or two of the people you want to meet agree to meet you for coffee or a meal, you might consider attendance at the trade show well worth the price. BERNIE SIBEN, CPSM, is owner and principal consultant with the Siben Consult, LLC, an independent A/E marketing and strategic consultant located in Austin, Texas. He can be reached 559-901-9596 or at bernie@sibenconsult.com.

If the answer to question #5 is “yes,” there is someone you have been trying to meet who will be at the show, this event might be an automatic “go.” How will you know? Ask the event sponsors. If it is within a month of the event, they will probably share the current registration list. If not, ask for a list of last year’s attendees to get an idea of who really attends. If there are other attendees you want to meet, keep a separate list of them. You will use that list later. For question #6, compare the description of the event and its attendees to your firm’s Strategic Plan. If there is convergence, it will be obvious. For questions #7 and #8, you might turn to your professional network – whether in your address book, or on LinkedIn or another online platform. Ask if others you know have attended this event and what they thought of it, whether they met people they wanted/needed to meet, whether opportunities to present or propose came from those meetings, etc. They will have useful insights about the event and the need for various levels of attendance and/or hospitality. “Attending trade shows can be a very expensive proposition, ranging from whether your firm sends only one person to having a booth and maybe hosting a hospitality event.” An additional consideration for question #8 is exclusivity. At one municipal association, no attendee can host an event when there is a trade show event going on. So all the breakfast events are the same morning and all the cocktail parties are the same evening. Under such restrictions, attendees tend to “work their way down the hall,” stopping in each room for a drink and a snack and then moving on to see what’s in the next room. If you are lucky enough to be at either end of the hall, you may keep your visitors for a longer period of time. Otherwise, they will probably be

THE ZWEIG LETTER May 2, 2016, ISSUE 1150

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