Inaugural SPOA conference a success

GaryPageau , , ,

The School Photographers of America held its first conference, the International Conference on School Photography & Yearbooks, held June 7-11, 2021, at the Westin Galleria, Houston, Texas. This conference and trade show brought together all segments of the school portrait and yearbook industries. The event was preceded by the ImageQuix/PhotoLynx Mastering Volume Photography user group conference.

The conference drew more than 300 attendees for three days of networking and instruction, culminating in an awards night recognizing innovators from the industry’s nearly century-long tradition, today’s rising stars, and the photographers themselves.

In addition to hard-hitting breakout sessions,  the SPOA conference featured top with keynote addresses from Joe Hart, CEO of Dale Carnegie; V.J. Smith, world-class speaker and public servant, and Tyler Tarver, director of learning and development, Tarver Academy.

The conference’s success culminates a year of rapid progress for the new association, which sprang into existence in response to COVID-19 in an effort to get school photography declared an essential service. Since its debut, the association has promulgated numerous industry initiatives, including establishing the American Foundation of School Pictures and Yearbooks and working with industry partners for a universal standard image-export format for school administrative software.

Following is a video providing a brief overview of the event:

Written by 

Gary Pageau is principal of InfoCircle LLC, continuing his marketing communications career. InfoCircle LLC is a marketing and communications consulting firm, specializing in business-to-business markets. For nearly 25 years, he was with PMA International, serving most recently as Publisher, Content Development and Strategic Initiatives. His primary responsibilities included overseeing the Association’s editorial department, marketing research unit, education and corporate relations department.