I spent this past weekend in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I’m a board member of the Nebraska Chapter of CFMA (Construction Financial Managers Association) and it seems that I may be president next year. CFMA National puts on a seminar at the Spring Creek Ranch for incoming chapter presidents, and my chapter sent me up there for some learnin’.

If you get the opportunity to go to Jackson Hole, I highly recommend it. It’s lovely country up there and I hear the skiing is great. It wasn’t quite ski season last weekend, but it was awesome hiking weather. As part of our seminar we did some hiking near the Gros Ventre Slide and at the base of the Teton mountain range.

The seminar was conducted by a company named Grand Dynamics. It’s a lot of group excersises to teach leadership and communication tools. Some of the activities are more effective than others, but the guys who run the show there are top notch. They really seem to live what they teach.

The best part of the seminar is the networking aspect. I got to meet a couple dozen outstanding people from all over the country. These people are mostly financial managers in the construction industry, as I am, which makes it very easy to quickly develop a rapport with them. They face the same problems I do every day, both in their jobs and as CFMA leaders. I will surely keep in touch with many, if not all, of the people I met at Spring Creek.

Below are some pictures from my trip. Most are pictures of the scenery, but a few may need some explanation. One of our activities was a billiards tournament, which my partner and I won and they gave us a plaque.

Another activity was the gift exchange. We all had to bring a gift to give to a person whose identity was unbeknownst to us until we got there. Shelli brought a book and drew my name. By the time she was supposed to give me the book, she got to know me. As regular readers of this blog know, that can only mean trouble. She was no longer satisfied with just the book as a gift and decided to augment the offering with some other gewgaws that you see in the photo. As accountants go, I tend to be a bit more demonstrative (that’s what you call obnoxious people when you want to be nice), so her gifts were appropriate and fun. Thanks for going the extra mile Shelli.

You’ll also note some rock balancing photos. Todd from Albuquerque and I did a fairly decent job of balancing rocks, I think. That particular activity takes a bit more patience than I have.