The csmf o CONFERENCE EXPERIENCE 14
Jean Rousseau, CSMFO’s new Executive Director Talks his Conference Experience Last month, CSMFO News highlighted Jean Rousseau becoming our new Executive Director. It also marked our first in-person conference in San Diego to “Discover CSMFO-Exploring our Financial Future. We asked Jean for some key takeaways: 1. This was the first CSMFO conference since 2020 due to the pandemic and your first CSMFO conference as Executive Director. Please share your thoughts on your observations/experience. Also, had you previously attended CSMFO conferences or chapter meetings in the past as a member. Jean: It was so nice to finally get together with people in person again after almost two years of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a great deal of excitement and positive energy from CSMFO staff, conference attendees and sponsors.
I am so honored to lead such an important educational and professional organization and extremely appreciative of the warm welcome that many participants expressed to me and my wife. I originally joined CSMFO approximately five years ago to participate in the Central Valley Chapter in order to attend a presentation from Michael Coleman who I consider to be one of the most respected experts on California finance. I wasn’t aware CSMFO held annual conferences so I never attended one in the past. 2. Both the Host Committee and Program Committee strive to offer attendees an excellent conference with educational sessions and networking options. With your extensive background with counties and cities, how would you say this was achieved? Jean: The Host and Program Committees did a phenomenal job in developing sessions with strong curriculum relevant to issues in municipal finance today. The speakers were all extremely qualified and did a fantastic job covering their topics. I have attended GFOA conferences since 2005 and found our CSMFO conference to be comparable in all aspects. As a CPA, I was impressed with the convenience of the scanning equipment utilized to keep track of CPE earned by our members and not having to stand in line to have my badge scanned. Ultimately, our conference included well organized general sessions with inspirational speakers and good food; excellent educational sessions with quality speakers; coffee and water breaks along with an extremely fun Thursday night event with quality entertainment, games and dancing.
