Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Dunnaway
Hi Lauren, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who woke up each morning grateful to be living at the intersection of her passion and purpose. Hello, y’all!!
In all sincerity, thinking about telling my story has been so much fun and a stopping point to look back on how in the world I got here. I will say, I found curiosity early, forging my way to connect & create as I went… I’ve loved to push limits.
I’m an entrepreneur and community enthusiast. I started my first business, a neighborhood hand delivered newspaper, at age 9. The next year I started a recycling business called the Can Care Club. In middle school I won the invention convention for creating The Purrrfect Cat Feeder (an early prototype of an automatic cat feeder fashioned from a gutter, spring, cardboard box and toy mouse). I’ve always loved to brainstorm and implement ideas.
I was also born with a love of forging connections – my own little creations and inventions. When people meet that moment is as unique, a secret potion, as the people that are ingredients to the concoction. The energy created is a product of their life’s experiences… beautiful, proprietary and thought provoking. That’s the magic that excites me. It’s been said that when we meet, we change the world. I so love this concept and have a real streak for bringing people together. It feeds me.
I grew up here in South Dallas/Duncanville. On holidays and weekends, I spent time at the family ranch in Kansas. Loving the outdoors, fishing, hunting, feeding cattle from the back of the truck & exploring the fields and streams around me. I’ve always been a tomboy and it was expected, on any given grade school night, I would come home with a bucket of fish for dad to clean from the creek. It’s hilarious to think back really. I may have been the only girl in Duncanville hauling a full bucket of water and fish through the streets! I loved to play soccer and started at age 7. (I still play today at 43) I was a grunge girl of the 90’s and can still recite most 90’s rap and country songs. I had the “growing up in the 80’s, come home when the streetlight goes on” kind of upbringing. Roaming the streets, skateboarding or just exploring with my best friends. We dreamed big in our Winnie Cooper moment.
I lived outside of Edmond, OK for the second half of high school. Some of my teenage angst began to calm here although I did still occasionally play/sing in a pseudo garage band. Looking back on it, I think it was the connection and community I found that redirected some teenage angst and creativity into things that served and fed my soul. I grew tremendously in those years and treaded more tracks to uncovering my purpose.
That on-fire passion for community began to drive me. I took part in many group activities and social circles, played soccer, ran track, high jumped and was senior class President. Believe it or not, my tomboy self had a seat in football homecoming court and was soccer homecoming queen. The people who knew me best would also tell you I was pretty busy orchestrating the weekend tailgate field parties, senior pranks and gatherings of those days. My favorite prank was “the chair”. We found an old recliner chair and would drop it one of our classmates porch overnight. Every recipient signed and passed it on. It truly became a badge of honor! And I always loved a well-played gathering! Ha! Pushing limits with naive confidence.
I went on to college station and joined the Delta Delta Delta sorority. I learned what it meant to do laundry, dishes, pay bills and try to keep my windstar minivan maintained! I loved gathering up as many friends as could fit in the van and having that vibe of “the party can start now that we’ve arrived” as we unloaded. Really pretty funny to see us pull up around campus. Always thriving off of producing the unexpected.
I loved my marketing classes and went on to work at the Bryan/College Station convention and visitor bureau. This really hit that snuggly spot in my core. I grew a passion for tourism and hospitality and stepped on that lilly pad to next get an internship in NYC at the Intercontinental Central Park South. I lived in NYU housing on Washington Square Park, took night classes in international business and took full advantage of all the Big Apple had to offer. I learned the hotel business in one of the biggest markets in the world.
I graduated from Texas A&M with a Bachelors in Business Marketing with an emphasis in Recreation, Parks & Tourism Studies. I never looked back from the hospitality industry starting at 19 years old to now. It is absolutely who I’ve become and this notion of bringing people together to create experiences or outcomes has truly been my life’s purpose. I don’t feel so much that I chose it but rather in my essence it has been me. I rarely smile the way I do when people come together.. and I see it’s always been that way.
I climbed through my career first in the hotel industry, then in the events agency side. I’ve worked on all shapes and sizes of events in all capacities globally. My clients range across the board from pharma to financial and from construction to education and many others. I’ve built a network of partners in all supplier facets from Thailand to Australia, from Amsterdam to Madrid, from Mexico City to Banff and many places on the maps in between. I’m a part of a true family in this industry that can swoop in at a moment’s notice for my client’s needs.
I’ve seen so many cultures and have gained more personal and professional growth than I ever set out seeing possible. In 2020, I involuntarily had the opportunity to become an entrepreneur again due to COVID. I flipped a house by the Dallas Zoo. And finally had my lifelong dream of starting my own meeting & event planning agency come to fruition with my very own older sister, Gretchen Mitchell, as a co-founder. After being laid off from my previous agency, I was able to bring my entire also laid off team to my new company, REACH Meetings & Events. Away we went!
Four years later the REACH team is 18 people strong, executing meetings around the wide world and right here at home in Dallas. We offer a varied palate of services and ways to partner with our clients. They range from complimentary services such as hotel/venue sourcing, to registration management, onsite staffing, full meeting management and entity wide strategic meetings management for our clients who want to centralize meeting & event vendors, processes and spend. It’s been a wild ride digging out of lockdowns and social distancing requirements, but we wouldn’t trade any bit of the scraping of our knees. Our mission is and always has been to bring people together, to create inflection and connection points through creativity and technology.
The Reach difference is all about approach. We are business consultants first. The differentiator is the effective marriage between executive business consulting and meeting & event expertise. The REACH team, as consultants, works with C-Level executives to identify how meetings & events support their overall objectives. When people meet, we truly do change the world.
Throughout my professional upbringing, I’ve had some exciting recognition propel me along. Here is where I not so humble brag.
I’ve obtained my Healthcare Meetings Compliance Certificate and am a Certified Incentive Travel Professional. I received the national “Leverage” Award for sales leadership from Interstate Hotels & Resorts in 2013. I served as an Associate Professor for two years at Collin College in the D/FW and taught the Introduction to Meetings & Events and Special Event Design courses. Lots of volunteer work has happened and I held volunteer positions within the Meeting Professionals International D/FW Chapter as a Board Member from 2009-2014 and the Society of Incentive Travel Executives from 2017-2021. I had the honor of being recognized as Rising Star for MPI DFW in 2010 and subsequently served the MPI chapter as President from 2012-2013. As a career high accomplishment, the MPI DFW Supplier Sales Blitz, which I created, won a Global Rise Award for Marketplace Excellence in 2018. In 2019, I won the MPI DFW Planner of the Year award and was recognized as one of Connect Marketplace’s Top 40 Under 40 in the world also in 2019. I served as the SITE TX President in 2020, and under my leadership, the chapter was recognized with the Global Chapter of The Year, Excellence in Education and Excellence in Membership awards (so proud about this one!). I was a graduate of the elite business community Leadership Coppell class of 2023, am 2024 Co-Chair for the Alliance of Meeting Professionals and was awarded the Top 50 Chief Sales Officers nationally in 2024 from Women We Admire.
All of this, I mean all of this happened because people gave me a chance and that chance married oh so well with my thirst for connection, community and creativity.
I’m eternally grateful to Big Shooter for the gifts my purpose has returned to me. And I find myself pulled to create these experiences for others. I’m a part of a fellowship that has taught me to pass it back and I’ve gotten so much out of this concept.
My personal life is aligned with my professional life. I flow through both with the same passion for connection and it allows me to put forward my authentic self and purpose in all that I do. For over twenty years, I’ve been especially active in the D/FW LGBTQ+ community where I plan numerous events for free and for fun. I build communities around common interests, in that space, and thrive on weaving personalities together and watching it blossom. I’m fed by watching people grow, succeed and be in a soul happy place. I plan to never hang that work up.
I’m a very blessed girl mom to my 8 year-old beating heart, Gwyneth Berniece. I like to say I’m growing up with her. Man is she something! So much talent, curiosity and inner goodness in that one. She carries on her great grandmother’s legacy in her heart space and her middle name. I have precious moments to volunteer at her school with the PTA and to attend almost every single activity because of the flexibility my work provides me. It’s a way of living that feels natural and how humans were designed to find balance. My wonderful partner, Trinity, and I are building a world we truly want to live in… a life that doesn’t always feel like the tail is wagging the dog. In fact, we’ve started a roofing & fencing company last year, Sunshine Roofing & Exteriors, to ensure we can always stay self-supporting and have means to enjoy the life we’re building. We love being woman owned in that space and serving our community and friends.
I love gardening, history, sociology, genealogy, fishing, play soccer, running, trivia, puzzles, travel, documentaries, wide open spaces & cooking for loved ones. Few things beat a good massage, Pastor Shante on a Sunday morning and the earth was created to show us cheese.
In every moment of my life, I feel so blessed. I feel an absolute knowingness that there’s so many exciting things to come and I can’t wait to find out how far off my time capsules will have been! The one thing for certain is that, as long as I live, you’ll find me connected and thriving on creativity in my communities and family.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My 2020 started out like most executives in the meetings & events industry. My global meeting management company was rocking along in early Q1, poised for year over year gains and growth with new accounts and services. By the second week of March, it was clear that COVID-19 had come to America and was making gathering in the rest of the world difficult. The reality that this would affect our industry and livelihood greatly set in over the next few weeks.
As President of SITE Texas, I worked diligently to get a handle on the effects of COVID-19 as it began to ravage meetings & events. On a personal level, I waited for the other shoe to drop as I knew it was only a matter of time before I would surely be laid off as a high wage earner as VP of Sales & Marketing within the firm I was working. I was newly divorced and began to prepare and identify other streams of income. I purchased a flip home and began work on that project as a means to keep some cash coming in once I would eventually be laid off. When the news came that my position would be cut, I launched my own company – Reach Meetings & Events.
As a 21 year industry veteran, leaving the industry and starting over simply wasn’t an option for me. While many smaller meetings houses were unfortunately being forced out of business, I felt bullish on the return of meetings and believed 2021 was the ideal time to pick up top talent as so many had been laid off and were considering their options. My company has offices in Dallas/Fort Worth, The Woodlands & Austin, TX & and has grown to a team of eighteen people. REACH services the corporate market heavily, including the Medical Device, Pharma, Finance, Industrial, Technology, Construction, Consulting, Real Estate and other verticals. We also have a deep well of clients in the Education, Government & Association markets.
REACH has grown extensively. In business, like in life, there is great opportunity in times of adversity. I’ve doubled down on the future of meetings and my company is gaining market share and continuing to build a quality team to service our client needs. Due to timing, all of this was done while serving as President and Immediate Past President of the Society of Incentive Travel Executives as we navigated the biggest disruption our industry has ever experienced.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
REACH Meetings & Events offers full-service event management expertise with services including venue sourcing, full meeting management, training and incentive programs, executive retreats, event staffing and we operate a fully licensed travel agency. REACH Meetings & Events subscribes to the notion that when you bring people together you can change the world.
REACH was founded in 2020 by a Fortune 500 consulting and training expert and a meetings industry veteran with deep experience in global meetings management. REACH is headquartered in Austin and Dallas, TX.
We formed REACH Meetings & Events because we saw the opportunity to offer a unique level of service through our consultative, collaborative, and creative approaches. Our goal is always to manage unforgettable events so that our clients have the opportunity to fully harness the richness of the event’s outcome.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
The Daily Calm
Start Where You Are, Pema Chodron
Bigger Pockets
Soberful
Texas Historical Markers
Pricing:
- Event Venue/Hotel Sourcing – Complimentary
- Event Staffing – $600/day
- Registration Website Build & Mangement – Custom
- Event Planning – Custom
- Fencing – Complimentary Estimate
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.reachmeetings.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reach_meetings/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reachmeetings
