By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bruceross@wi.rr.com
This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s September, 2021 Newsletter edition.
In January of 2020, WWA’s Board of Directors voted to assume a leadership role and initiate what turned out to be called the Waterfowl Hunters EXPO. Together with former WWA Director Mark Kakatsch of Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, we assembled a team representing all the duck hunting organizations across the state.
Together, we decided that we would merge the best of the now-defunct Waterfowl Hunter’s Conference that had a distinct science and waterfowl management flavor with the fun, family entertainment of the Great Outdoors days. So our programming this year reflected that intent, and our goals, too, fell somewhere in between.
After organizing into a committee structure to develop this event, we collaboratively worked for nearly 20 months to make it a reality.
I was very pleased that each organization was willing to join forces in this significant effort for the state’s duck and goose hunters. I liken this to the duck stamp effort, where the shared interest created a glue to hold these disparate organizations together for the large effort that was required. The following planning committee members, representing their organizations, doing the noted work, were key to the success of this year’s EXPO.
- Mark Kakatsch – WWF (and former WWA director) – initial organization, shooting venues, fundraising, all around troubleshooter and make-it-happener
- Bruce Urben – WWA – Logistics (location coordination, activity support, set-up)
- Todd Schaller – WWA – Volunteer management
- Kim Shady – WWA – Exhibitor/vendor management
- Drew Fowler – DNR – Scheduling, signage, presenting, clean-up
- Taylor Finger – DNR – Programming (presentations, demos, seminars
- Don Kirby – Bast Durbin (and former WWA Exec Director) – Marketing, Master of Ceremonies
- Bryan Muche – Seasons2Remember – Marketing coordination, website, Admission
- Nancy Gleisner – Ducks Unlimited – Youth Zone planning and execution
- Connie Markham & Shawn Gibbons – Swift-Waters – Social Media, Digital marketing
- Eric Johnson – Delta (also WWA and GBDH) – Fundraising, marketing
- Brad Heidel – Delta – Marketing
- Bruce Ross – WWA – Steering Committee Chair
These folks were joined by others who assisted in the marketing, programming, and fundraising sub-committees, and finally, by over 100 volunteers to actually put on the event on August 28th. Nice job – well done!!
We have a list of items that can be improved, and all of them are easily addressed, so my personal goals would be to improve the quality of the EXPO while growing it slowly.
But as of this writing, the Steering committee will meet in a couple of days to decide whether to do it again, and if so, what strategic issues should we address before moving on to 2022’s EXPO. Have an opinion? Let me know: [email]bruceross@wi.rr.com[/email].
For now, on to the remaining days of teal season and preps for the regular opener.