Click here for more photos.On behalf of AACS, we would like to thank everyone who attended the 2018 Annual Convention & Expo at Hilton Lake Buena Vista in Orlando, Florida. Our focus at this year’s convention was to take action and put our ideas into motion to elevate the future leaders of the beauty and wellness industry and the broader community as a whole.
One of the highlights from the event happened the first night at the Owner’s Dinner with a year and review by Immediate Past President, Frank Trieu. AACS members pledged over $119,000 toward the Government Relations General Fund! If you would also like to contribute towards those efforts please click here to donate. During the Owner’s Dinner we were also was able to play a tribute video that honored Robert Passage, of Pivot Point, for his twenty- four years of service to the organization.
The event kicked off with keynote speaker Pete Smith, of SmithImpact, who made us laugh out loud while enlightening the audience with the main pillars of significance that allow each of us to know without certainty who we are and that what we do matters. The educational sessions that followed throughout the weekend focused our audience to ELEVATE our best practices, enVISION innovative ideas and create a LEGACY to carry the industry forward.
We celebrated past N.F. Cimaglia Award recipients and this year’s winner Kenneth Shuler of Kenneth Shuler School of Cosmetology. We also honored our AACS Pioneers with a reception hosted by Milady. One of the greatest opportunities came from a video conference with Principal Deputy Under Secretary, Diane Auer Jones, of the U.S Department of Education; We were able to share our concerns directly with her and get the latest updates from the Department. We concluded the conference with Lee Kitchen, Magical Innovation and Creativity Dude, who worked for The Walt Disney Company for 32 years. He brought us fun and innovative exercises where we were able to experience the importance of how collaboration and creativity can impact change in any organization.
A very special thank you to all of our sponsors and exhibitors who participated in this annual conference.
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