Tracks
Building Confidence, Skills, & Connections
Whether you're new to AEC marketing or looking to strengthen your foundation, this track is designed to help you find your footing and build confidence. Explore practical approaches to managing workloads, navigating pursuits, embracing new ideas, and communicating effectively. Walk away with tools and insights to make an impact, no matter where you are in your career.
You Set the Menu: The Overwhelmed Marketer's Cookbook
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 | 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Speaker: Dana Williams, CPSM | Hyder Construction 
Format: Workshop
Too much on your plate, not enough hours? This high-energy, hands-on workshop is for A/E/C marketers who are overwhelmed and ready to take back control of their kitchen. Roll up your sleeves as we dig into reigniting your motivation, letting go of what drains you, building systems that save time, and protecting your plate even when everything's on fire. Served with humor, honesty, and tools you'll actually use.
Key Takeaways
- Discover how your natural tendencies and motivations influence your productivity, and learn to work with them instead of against them.
- Identify what's draining your time and energy, and decide what deserves a place on your plate.
- Explore practical strategies for working smarter, incuding delegation, automation, and letting go of tasks that don't deserve your attention.
About Dana
Dana Williams is Senior Marketing Manager at Hyder Construction in Denver, CO, where she runs marketing as a department of one. A member of SMPS Colorado (where she has served as Chapter President and Programs Emcee), Dana brings energy, humor, and hard-won practical wisdom to every stage she steps on. She has spoken at 20+ events ranging from intimate workshops to audiences of 200+, including the 2025 SMPS Amplify National Conference. An active Toastmaster with 60+ speeches, Dana specializes in professional growth, leaving audiences inspired and equipped with tools they can use immediately.
The Innovation You're Not Attempting
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 | 1:45 PM - 2:45 PM
Speaker: Julie Huval, FSMPS, CPSM | Marketing Operations Advisor Format: Lecture
Risk aversion is innovation's silent killer. This hands-on session pushes AEC marketers to fail on purpose through live exercises, then extract real insight from what went wrong. Participants leave with a repeatable framework for treating failure as data, not defeat, and the confidence to attempt bigger ideas back at their firm.
Key Takeaways
- Reframe failure as data: Distinguish between failures that carry useful insight and failures that don't, using a repeatable evaluation method.
- Apply a post-failure debrief framework: Extract specific, actionable lessons from a failed attempt in minutes, rather than avoiding or glossing over it.
- Identify personal and team risk-aversion patterns: Recognize the specific fears or habits holding them back from proposing bolder ideas at their firm.
- Practice low-stakes risk-taking: Complete hands-on exercises designed to fail, building tolerance for the discomfort of trying something uncertain.
- Build a business case for a risk-tolerant culture: Translate the "safe to fail" mindset into language leadership will support, regardless of career stage or seniority.
About Julie
Julie Huval, FSMPS, CPSM, is a business operations strategist with over 20 years of AEC industry experience. As founder and owner of Marketing Operations Advisor, she helps organizations build sustainable competitive advantages through operational excellence and strategic talent retention. Her expertise spans organizational effectiveness, optimal technology stacks, process optimization, and creating systems that enable teams to thrive and deliver exceptional growth results.
Julie is a sought-after speaker and thought leader, contributing regularly to industry publications. She holds an MBA from UT Arlington and an undergraduate degree from Baylor University. Julie's reputation is built on her ability to connect operational systems with people strategy, helping firms create environments where both businesses and talent flourish.
From Wrangling Deadlines to Steering Pursuit Strategy
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 | 3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
Speaker: Pam Conine, CPSM | Shaffer Creative Format: Lecture
Proposal professionals often enter pursuits wrangling deadlines, chasing content, and producing documents after key decisions are made. Yet their view across the entire pursuit gives them a unique opportunity to help steer strategy. This session offers a practical framework for growing from a reliable coordinator to a strategic pursuit leader by asking sharper questions, guiding better decisions, shaping the pursuit story, and influencing teams.
Learning Objectives
- Recognize behaviors and processes that keep proposal professionals in reactive, order-taking roles.
- Ask strategic questions that reveal client priorities, pursuit risks, competitive strengths, and unresolved decisions.
- Facilitate kickoffs and reviews that advance decisions, rather than focusing on assignments, deadlines, and document production.
- Translate pursuit strategy into coordinated action, aligning team decisions, key messages, proof points, content, and design around a clear win approach.
- Use insights from pursuits and debriefs to recommend improvements that strengthen future pursuit performance and internal processes.
About Pam
Pam Conine is a Senior Consultant with Shaffer Creative who helps architecture, engineering, and construction firms strengthen proposals, marketing processes, and strategic planning. Her experience includes managing complex pursuits, developing proposal systems and tools, implementing marketing plans, conducting marketing audits, and leading marketing staff. Having worked within and alongside different types of AEC firms, Pam has learned that there is no single right way to approach marketing or pursuits. She brings an adaptable, practical perspective shaped by navigating different teams, processes, resources, and business priorities. With experience spanning strategy, content, design, and production, Pam understands both the daily demands placed on proposal professionals and the broader business decisions that drive firm growth. She is passionate about helping AEC marketers move beyond reactive execution, build credibility, and become more strategic contributors to their firms.
Every Conversation Steers Your Brand
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12 | 8:30 AM - 9:30 AM
Speaker: Keith Bailey | Articulated Intelligence Format: Lecture
We practice presentations. We practice interviews. So why don't we practice one of the professional skills we use nearly every day: networking? In this interactive keynote, you'll practice intentional conversations that shape perception, strengthen relationships, and build trust. Strong brands don't happen by accident, so why should networking? You'll leave connected to the SMPS community and equipped to build relationships that move careers, clients, and firms forward.
Key Takeaways
- Set an intentional networking goal that creates purpose, builds confidence, and provides a measurable sense of accomplishment throughout the conference experience.
- Identify who to approach, how to approach them, and how to be approachable.
- Start conversations that put the person before the profession, creating authentic connections from the very first interaction.
- Exit conversations with purpose by creating a natural next step, a clear follow-up, and a lasting impression.
About Keith
Keith Bailey's journey from the Netherlands to the US at 8 years old was a crash course in making connections. Picture this: a kid who didn't speak the language, clad in mom-made outfits, trying to navigate the complex social waters of a new country. It was a challenge he dove into headfirst, fueled by curiosity. His time in the United States Marine Corps as a photojournalist added another layer to his approach, and there he learned the power of storytelling and a "go-giver" mindset. Putting the person before the profession became his mantra, and weaving stories into his practice became a superpower. From hospitality to fitness coaching to global sales, Keith honed his speaking skills, using Toastmasters and the National Speakers Association as his training ground and improv stages as his playground. To give everyone the opportunity to live life well-spoken, he co-founded Articulated Intelligence, a communication up-leveling firm where clients play and practice so they can perform at their best when it matters most.
Stop Cleaning Up. Start Closing Out.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12 | 9:45 AM - 10:45 AM
Speaker: Rachelle Ray | OpenAsset Format: Lecture
Every AEC marketer has heard "garbage in, garbage out," nodded, and felt the guilt of years of proposals, narratives, and project sheets saved inconsistently — or not saved at all. Now that AI tools need clean data to actually work, that guilt has turned into paralysis. The mountain feels too big to fix. This session makes the case that fixing it isn't the job — closing it out, going forward, is. Proposal closeout is the step most teams skip, rush, or never built a process for, and it's the single highest-leverage habit you can build right now. Done well, every proposal becomes a deposit into your firm's institutional knowledge, captured while it's still fresh instead of lost once the team moves on.
Key Takeaways
- A clear case for why closeout (not legacy cleanup) is the best use of your time right now
- A practical closeout framework covering resumes, project sheets, narratives, imagery, and client intelligence
- A way to spot the gaps in your own process and the quick wins you can act on immediately
- A ready-to-use checklist and process map to bring back to your team on Monday
About Rachelle
Rachelle Ray is a dynamic AEC marketing leader focused on creativity, education, and empowering marketers. As Head of AEC Marketing Innovation at OpenAsset, co-founder of Proposal Industry Experts, and owner of RMR Consulting, she helps firms improve strategy, team collaboration, and pursuit efficiency. With 15+ years of experience, Rachelle is a passionate advocate for burnout prevention, professional development, and community building. A frequent speaker at national and regional conferences, she's also contributed to the first AI certification for proposal professionals. Her work bridges the gap between marketing and leadership, equipping professionals to thrive in a rapidly evolving industry.
