Staff Spotlight: Meghan Callahan
Meet the Academy's Senior Manager, Meeting Operations, who helps ensure every Academy event is a seamless experience.
Meghan (left) and colleague, Beth Burchill, all dressed up for an event industry networking reception.
How long have you been at the Academy? Since May 2022; three years!
What do you do as the Senior Manager, Meeting Operations? As any event professional will say, I wear many hats in my role. I manage the logistics for the AAO-HNS/F Annual Meeting and OTO Forum. This includes managing relationships and contracts with vendors, planning the room set-ups for all meetings and events, coordinating food and beverage, housing and registration, and creating our mobile application. As a team, we start building out the framework of our operations and evaluating best practices for the next destination about 15 months before the next meeting. It's like tackling a new puzzle every year with similar goals, but new challenges!
Where is your happy place in or near the Academy's headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia? I have enjoyed living in Alexandria for the last two years, and the Mount Vernon Trail, which goes along the waterfront, has become my happy place. I especially love bringing my dog with me on walks and runs. It's the best escape to clear the mind while being by the water.
Meghan and Reese enjoy a fall afternoon run along the Potomac River.
Tell us about one of your most memorable moments working for the Academy. This might be cliché, but the rush of Annual Meeting kicking off the first day and the satisfaction of it all coming to a close on the last day. There's a sense of pride seeing all your hard work come to an end. My role has grown significantly in the last three years, and each Annual Meeting only gets better than the last.
Coffee or tea? Coffee! My first job in high school was working as a barista, and now coffee is my cup of joy first thing in the morning. As Lorelei Gilmore [on the TV show “Gilmore Girls”] would say, "I need coffee in an IV."
