Skip to main content

Omaha Magazine

Local Champions Bring Millions Home

Apr 29, 2016 04:24PM ● By Keith Backsen

It’s one thing to love a city, it’s quite another to try and convince national associations, sporting organizations, and groups to plan a meeting, convention or event in your city. If it was easy cities wouldn’t need Convention & Visitors Bureaus, but the unsung champion in the whole process is you.

More than 25 local Omaha residents, from the powerful to the average Joe, have helped bring convention, meeting and event business to our city this year.

With Harold Cliff’s leadership the Omaha Sports Commission (local community leaders who volunteer their time) worked to have Omaha selected to host the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials for a third time. It didn’t hurt that the 2012 Omaha event broke attendance records for any swimming event ever held in the U.S. including the Olympics in Atlanta and Los Angeles.

President and Founder of TotalWellness, Alan Kohll, proves that persistence pays off when Omaha was chosen as the location for the 2016 USA Triathlon. Omaha Zoo CEO, Dennis Pate helped convince the Associations of Zoos and Aquariums to meet in Omaha, the event will bring in 900 attendees from all over the world and more than $1 million in visitor spending.  Omaha City Clerk Buster Brown, having gone to conventions in other cities for years, convinced the International Institute of Municipal Clerks to look at Omaha; they did and will be holding their annual conference here in May. UNO’s Deepak Khazanchi , Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, is constantly putting Omaha’s name in the mix, and this year helped Omaha bring the World Intelligence Congress meeting to Omaha. Following in Warren Buffett’s footsteps, Lori and Paul Hogan, who own Home Instead Senior Care, hold their companies international convention in Omaha every year – they could go anywhere, they choose to bring the meeting business home.

This is just a small sampling of the convention and sporting business coming to Omaha in 2016, yet it means more than $53 million in economic impact for the city.

From the Omaha Lions Club to the local Cat Clubs, Omaha residents are making a real impact. And it’s simple for you to do the same. If you are a member of an organization, association or sporting group think about bringing your organization’s meeting or event to Omaha.  We’ll do all the heavy lifting; we just need a local boost from you.

Evvnt Calendar