About Alison

Thank you for visiting my site to learn who I am, where I came from, and where I am going.  I was born Valentine’s Day, grew up in Quincy, Illinois, and am a PROUD 2016 graduate of Iowa State University. I have a BS in Event Management with a minor in Entrepreneurship.  I was active in many civic, school, and community activities in Quincy, but none more special to me than being elected Class President for the 2013 graduating class. 

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I live in Iowa with my handsome husband, our dog, and our gorgeous daughters, Logan and Blakely. We love to take our dog, Sophie, for walks and watching her run in the backyard. I love any kind of theme party so naturally my girls birthday parties are the place to be! We have been fixing up our house with every D.I.Y. you can think of and have finally listed to for sale! I am so lucky I have such a handy man. I truly love watching our daughters grow everyday and making memories with them. Like most parents, my daughters are my light, but also the reason for my dark undereye circles!

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Experience

As an event planner, every day is a new challenge whether choosing the perfect venue, selecting menus, calming the jitters of an anxious bride, or creating the perfect tablescape, I create the behind the scene magic which transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary. You aren't just choosing an event planner, you are choosing who will act as the nucleus to ensure successful event execution. I have had the amazing honor of taking part of planning over 2,000 meetings, 55 weddings, 3 fundraising events, 2 large corporate events, 2 team building courses, 1 virtual buying show, and 9 large trade-shows! I have experience in management, contract negotiation, vendor RFPs, floor-plan layouts, menu selections, budgeting, sales reports following trade-shows, and much more. I worked at the Retail Jewelers Organization as the Special Events Planner. It was there I planned bi-annual trade-shows in various cities start-to-finish. These trade shows have millions of dollars in purchasing done each show for jewelers across the U.S. My last show with RJO closed with $20,384,311.96 in sales! Additionally, I designed an online monthly publication called Inside Track for retail stores to see what lines vendors are pushing and what is selling best. I was the designer for a marketing campaign for the European Branding Trip where I was able to produce advertisements for all social media platforms for jewelers. 

My Last Issue of Inside Track:

https://issuu.com/rjoinc/docs/october_edition_d17ea3a11cad63?fr=sOTZjODU0MjYwNTU

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Internships

I was fortunate to gain experience from two uniquely different internships.  At Iowa State University Department of Extension and Outreach, I assisted with the planning and development of the 40th Anniversary of Municipal Professionals Academy and Institute.  After an internship with Anthony Marinaro, I was hired as the Assistant Event Planner for his company, Out of Box Productions in Des Moines, Iowa. My experience in event planning includes corporate events, non-profit fundraisers/events, and of course, weddings.

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Where am I now?

Currently, I am the Conference Center Coordinator for John Deere. I was brought on to be the stress reliever, the event ringleader, and to ensure the high expectations for John Deere Events are not only fulfilled, but exceeded.

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