It was the letter from a lady in Elk Grove that brought tears to George Martin’s eyes, convincing him to organize the Bakersfield Business Conference once again.
“Each year when it is over I think I’m not going to do it again,” said the managing partner of Borton, Petrini & Conron, LLP. “This is a big undertaking and it takes a toll on you. Then you get the wonderful letters from people who enjoy this conference so much.”
The letter was from a woman whose grandmother left her money to attend the conference. Her grandmother was never able to attend and when her granddaughter went to the event, she would watch the clock and follow along on the conference syllabus.
“To top it off she enclosed a picture of her grandmother’s gravestone and it had on it a fan from the Bakersfield Business Conference. So I say, `Well I’m going to do it some more,'” Martin said.
Bonnie Fitzgerald, the conference coordinator, as well as Martin organizes the event.
“People say I do it, but she does,” he said. “Bonnie as well as a lot of other people.”
Martin works year-round to plan the business conference, which will be held at California State University, Bakersfield Saturday.
“This takes all year,” he said. “This would be a fairly easy program if it was a lecture series and you had one speaker every three weeks. The big challenge is bringing internationally acclaimed people who can speak to Bakersfield all on the same day. That gets to be a tremendous challenge.”
But the challenge is changing for Martin because the conference has garnered a reputation around the country. His problem now is that he has too many people wishing to speak.
“We have a little bit of a problem sometimes with people getting offended that we just couldn’t get them on the program,” Martin said. “That wasn’t the way it was when we first started. When we first started we would call up and ask if they would like to come to Bakersfield and talk in a tent. They laughed a lot but that doesn’t happen today.”
Because of the popularity of the conference Martin already has the speakers for next year’s conference lined up.
“The speakers for next year’s program are already booked,” he said. “We work a year, sometimes a year and a half in advance. Eighty percent of the tickets are sold by the time the conference is held, without knowing who the speakers are. Which is an amazing thing in the special events industry.”
Before working with Borton, Petrini and Conron, Martin was the president of the Southern California Defense Council. While president, he had an idea for a seminar in Bakersfield.
“It is sort of a twisted history,” Martin said. “After I suggested a seminar in Bakersfield everyone went under the table laughing. I was the only person who believed we could have a seminar in Bakersfield. And we did.”
The conference began as an insurance seminar for lawyers. But soon business people began attending the seminar because they thought it was fun, Martin said. So Martin and his colleagues decided to change the focus of the seminar to business.
“It took off,” he said. “It went way beyond what we expected. We see it as an educational tool. People will leave our conference with bits of information that will affect them for the rest of their life. They are going to see walking history come across that stage.”
He said one of the bigger changes this year is a larger tent, constructed to accommodate the increasing crowds at the conference.Also, Martin has in place a complex sound system that transmits immediately inside the tent.
“We have 130 speakers pointed down,” Martin said. “There will be no echoes and no lip-syncing.”
Aside from founding, planning and organizing the Bakersfield Business Conference, Martin has helped other cities organize their own versions of a business conference. From Texas to England, Martin has met people who admire the conference and want to bring that to their hometown.
“We’re always patriotic and it will continue to be that,” he said. “But our view is that patriotism should not be just when you have a bad time. It should be patriotic, period.”
Martin said that there will be a surprise guest at this year’s conference, despite the rumors that there won’t be one. He said he is confident that the conference will be a joyous day, but it will be a “day of remembrance,” he said.
“It will be probably more reflective. But I’ve also talked to a good many of our speakers and its important that humor be a part of this program,” he said. “Anyone that leaves this program this year and is not proud that they are an American is never going to be proud. It’s going to be that good.”