Sunday, March 11 – Past Presidents’ Dinner

Sunriver is a massive resort where people can vacation in cabin style rooms, but people also live there full time in the many houses situated in town. Sunriver, according to the locals I spoke to, is not a city, but a community where people can come together and have fun by playing golf, swim in one of their many indoor pools, get a relaxing massage at their spa, or workout in the gym. Sunriver also contained restaurants and plenty of shopping opportunities, making it a perfect place to visit and vacation in either the summer or winter.

Wanting to make the most out of my time in Sunriver, my wife, Dolores, and I arrived late Friday night to get the lay of the resort and create a mini vacation for the both of us. We checked in and began to take full advantage of the many amenities the resort had to offer, but nothing beat the spectacular views the snowy days created. Walking from our room to anywhere was a bit of a challenge when it began to snow heavily, but it was such a beautiful place that Dolores and I did not mind walking through snow to get to our next destination.

The resort has many ideal locations to house OGFOA members as they traverse through the woodsy areas of the resort (think Big Bear or any other mountainous region in California). As attendees arrived to check-in for the conference, OGFOA leadership held their Past Presidents’ Dinner on Sunday night. I was fortunate enough to be included for dinner with their leaders of prior years as they told stories of how their organization has grown over time to what it is now. Generally, their spring conference rotates between Sunriver and Seaside, offering differing landscapes while keeping the same great content for programming sessions.

Monday, March 12 – Day 1

Beginning at 7:00 AM, registration opened for OGFOA members, and after their badges were in hand, they headed down to the Homestead Ballroom for breakfast, followed by their first keynote speaker, Steve Brown, an AI expert, entrepreneur, futurist, and author who spoke on Navigating the Generative AI Revolution. Much like with CSMFO, artificial intelligence proved to be a very popular topic; there is no denying AI is at the forefront of conversations no matter what industry you are a part of. As I listened to the questions the OGFOA members had for the keynote speaker, I could not help but to see the similarities between the questions and concerns of OGFOA members and CSMFO members. The session proved to be very timely and very informative.

As I began to use the OGFOA app from Whovia, I browsed their program content and saw that Finance is universal no matter where you live. Sessions I attended that day included Post-Covid Market Updates and a lunch general session with keynote speaker Alan Skelton, on super relevant topics regarding GASB updates. Alan is extremely popular wherever he goes and easily receives the most questions of any speaker, as members want to know how to properly implement the latest GASB pronouncement. Other sessions I attended the first day included another session from Alan Skelton, but this time strictly for GASB 94 and 96, and a session on internal controls in small departments.

The evening ended with a group event in which members came together for a delicious dinner of a very fancy steak while playing an intense game of trivia using their own phone. Teams were formed and the game became highly competitive as everyone wanted to win the gift cards that were up for grabs. I had a wonderful time meeting new friends and catching up with some of the same commercial vendors that support CSMFO, including BMO, US Bank, JP Morgan, and PFM.

Tuesday, March 13 – Day 2

Day 2 started much like day 1, as members woke up to a fresh pile of newly formed snow and had to be careful making their morning trek from their rooms to the conference location. Tuesday offered another great breakfast with the keynote speaker this time coming from GFOA. Emily Brock gave a fantastic update on legislative activity occurring in Washington DC that affects finance folks. Emily was very charismatic and spoke of timely information related to the federal budget, the Inflation Reduction Act, and ARPA. Other relevant sessions I attended this day included Paid Leave in Oregon, Rethinking Reserves, and “Is Two Years Better Than One? Making the Switch to Biennial Budgets”. All were very helpful and informative and even applied to my job.

At lunchtime, the OGFOA gave me the opportunity to come up to the podium and speak on behalf of CSMFO. This gave me a chance to say great things about the OGFOA conference, the site location of the conference, and of course, thanking their outgoing President, Gloria Butsch, who is the Finance Director of the City of St. Helens. I presented Gloria with a gift representing California and my hometown of Riverside, which included items from the Mission Inn, dates from the Coachella Valley, and other little knickknacks.

Tuesday ended with an amazing dinner that was put together for the various out-of-state Presidents, including Alaska, Washington, and California. Dinner was served in one of the conference rooms, but a chef was on hand to personally prepare our dinner for us, which was a four-course dinner that was to die for. I’ve never had braised quail or elk tenderloin, but that dinner alone resulted in me gaining at least three pounds. It was worth it because every bite was amazing!

Wednesday, March 14 – Day 3

Wednesday was a bittersweet day as I woke up knowing that the conference was ending at lunch time. After breakfast, Shayne Kavanagh of GFOA provided a keynote entitled “Ethics is a Matter of Trust”. Ethics is always a great subject matter of discussion and Shayne did a great job presenting the information to the remaining guests as about half had hit the road on the long drive back to their respective roads. Finally, the conference ended with a general session regarding an Economic Update from local economist Josh Lehner.

In total, the OGFOA conference attendees numbered about 300, which was a great turnout for their organization and one of the highest attendance counts since COVID. The OGFOA Board did a fantastic job putting together an amazing conference, and the President’s conference theme of Finding Balance resonated well with me and all the other guests in attendance. I really do appreciate the opportunity to attend another state’s conference and meet new people along the way.