Trendsetter Tuesday: A Conversation With Chase Brunson
Independent planner Chase Brunson is the foremost advocate for transgendered people in the meetings and events industry, frequently speaking for top industry associations such as MPI and PCMA.
As part of our regular Trendsetter Tuesday podcast series, Meetings Today's Tyler Davidson engaged Brunson to discover his journey and learn key tips for his planner colleagues to implement in their programs to ensure their events are welcoming to all attendees.
[Related: The 2024 Meetings Trendsetters Paving New Paths in the Events Industry]
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Transcript:
Editors note: The following transcription was facilitated by AI program Otter.ai and proofed by our editors. Although it is very accurate, there inevitably will be some mistakes, so please consider that when reading. Thank you.
Tyler Davidson
Tyler, hello and welcome to this Meetings Today podcast. I'm Tyler Davidson, Vice President and Chief Content Director of Meetings Today. hanks for joining us. We are here today with Chase Brunson, who is an independent meeting event planner based in Austin, Texas, and also really a leading transgender rights advocate in the meetings and events industry. Thanks for joining us.
Chase Brunson
Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Tyler Davidson
And why don't you tell us a little bit to start off, a little bit about yourself. And I Oh, I should. I should hasten to mention that Chase is also one of our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters, and this is part of our Trendsetters Tuesday podcast feature. So thanks, Chase for joining us. And why don't you let the audience know a little bit about your history in the industry?
Chase Brunson
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm honored to be on the podcast, and I was super honored to be named a Trendsetter this year. So, I do want to say thank you for that. But yeah, so I got started in the meetings industry kind of on accident, which I feel like when I talk to a lot of people, that happens to most of us. I do wish I had known about it before college. I do think that if I had had a real background in hospitality, that I would have enjoyed college a lot more, but we're here. We got it. We're done.
But I went to Texas A&M University and I started off as a bus driver, actually. And part of driving the busses for our campus was that you had to participate in special events, and the bus driving job was drawn off of a hierarchy system, and so if you were low on the totem pole, you did not get to drive a bus during game days or other events. You got to sit out in a scorching hot parking lot in the Texas heat in August and sell parking vouchers for game days and things like that.
So, I started doing that, and it actually worked out where one day I showed up to work and they didn't have me on the schedule. My very first time ever doing this, and the director of the parking department didn't have somebody to go around with her. And so I actually ended up sitting with the director this day for the first time. So here I am, like new, doe-eyed little freshman, and I'm sitting with the director of Texas A&M’s parking program, which is one of the best in the nation. Actually, it's one of the largest, one of the best. And so we just hit it off really well.
On this game day, I spent about a 13-or-so-hour day with her. So, we had to be up there at 5 a.m. and then part of these events where you didn't get to go home until after the first quarter. So, if we had a 6 p.m. game, we were there at 5 a.m. we weren't leaving until 7 p.m. or after, and so I started doing those with her. And that kind of continued throughout my college career to the point where I actually switched departments.
So, I stopped driving the busses, and I just strictly became a special events student aid for them. And so at that point, I was running parking for like conferences or any sorting event that came into A&M; basically any special event at A&M had we were in charge of the parking for that. And so throughout that process, I really learned that I loved the ever changing event days.
So, you know, every Saturday we had a football game, but it was different. Every Saturday we were working different hours. We were working with different people. We were working with different customers. And so it's just a really great experience. And I realized that I I never really wanted a desk job, but I didn't know exactly what I want to do with my life in college.
And so this experience really, really opened the door for me in hospitality. And so when I graduated, I knew that I wanted to stay in special events, but not necessarily in parking, and so I basically just started applying to jobs all over the country. I wanted to get out of Texas, and I was offered a seminar coordinator position from the Oregon Society of CPAs. And so I actually moved from Texas, out of state, all the way to Oregon, three days away from my family, anything like that. I moved up there with my partner at the time, and I was their seminar coordinator for a while, and then their conference manager left. I was promoted, and that's when I really got into association, professional development, basically.
So I've been doing that for about the last eight or nine years, bouncing around from different associations, but I mainly do adult learning. So I've worked for lawyers, I've worked for CPAs, I've worked for project managers, and I've done things like, you know, basically set up speakers and set up programming stuff for them. And I am super, really big into accessibility and the virtual events. So I've recently acquired my digital event strategist, and I have helped three of my former jobs basically go from no online events to all of their online events. So I'm super, super big into event technology.
Tyler Davidson
And then, I know, when I interviewed you earlier, you said that in this industry in particular, you feel very comfortable in it as a transgender person, and you know you have…it's an industry full of nice, kind people in general. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about your experience in that fashion, and then just your general experience being a transgender person and all that entails. And I know that it entails a lot, right? And you're out there educating people about this, and it's very new to some people, but you know, tell me more about your relationship in themeetings industry, your comfort level there, and then some of your endeavors, educating people about transgender populations?
Chase Brunson
Yeah, absolutely. So yes, I am a very out and very proud trans man. I have been medically transitioning, so that means I've been on hormones for, I want to say, seven years. And I've been socially out for about nine years. So that means that I was out to, you know, friends and family and using different pronouns and a different name that I was born with and stuff for about two years before my medical transition started.
But yes, I have found, of all industries, to be involved in the meeting industry tends to be very accepting. I have never in my eight years in the industry, I've never had any issues with anybody. No one has ever given me weird looks at a conference that I'm speaking at, or has ever asked any just like wild, crazy questions that I have heard from other panels that I've sat in that are not in the meetings industry. I hope, and I think this goes back to the industry that we serve….
So I look at it like meeting professionals, we have to we have to be accepting, we have to be kind, we have to be open to everyone, because if we're not, then we're automatically excluding people from our events. And whether you want to look at that from a personal perspective or you want to look at that from a business perspective, it's not good for anything. It's not going to be good for your career long term, and it's certainly not good for businesses if we're excluding people. And so I think that our industry has just really picked up on that, and it's made us a little bit more welcoming, a little bit more willing to, you know, step out and shake somebody's hand and get to know them. And then I would also say that that's a big thing of the meeting history is that I think we joke around that most of us are introverts, and I think that that helps a whole lot. We're, we're just always …. at the party. We're ready to go out and make those friends.
We're meeting planners for a reason. You know, we come up with crazy ideas the big ideas that we want to get done and execute. And so I think all of that contributes to why our industry is just so, so welcoming, so accepting, and just overall, great. Yeah, I love the industry.
Tyler Davidson
You've actually spoken at a lot of the big industry associations—MPI, PCMA—probably missing a few…What sort of feedback you get when you do that, and what sort of questions do people ask? Where does that leave you in your perspective with how people think about this issue in the meetings and events industry?
Chase Brunson
Yeah, so I think for the most part, the feedback that I get, and I think it's really important to important to point out, is that I am traditionally, or usually, one of the first trans people that a lot of people in the room have come into contact with. So especially like, as we've mentioned, with things in the news right now, this has been going on for a long time.
So, the first bathroom bill was really introduced in 2016 in North Carolina. So, we’re going on almost 10 years of this now, and before that happened, we didn't really hear much of things in the news. You had Caitlyn Jenner maybe coming out, but things were really quiet on the transgender front. And I'll even say that when I came out, the reason I didn't know about trans people really, even as a queer person in high school and stuff, because it just wasn't presented to me.
And so I think unfortunately, right now, we're in a time period where all of the media stuff around trans folks is really, really negative, and we're just really missing out on just generalized humanity of people, you know. So I'm not a martyr, I'm not a bad person. I am just strictly an adult trying to, you know, live my life and work my career and have a family and be at home and just do all normal things.
Being trans is just part of my identity, and it's a part of my identity that doesn't come up unless it comes up. So, you know, when I am trying to educate people on transgender rights, but when I go to work every day, or when I'm sitting around the house, or when I go to the park, you know, being trans doesn't come up and it shouldn't come up. And I think that we've got media right now really making it seem like trans folks are these big bad wolves in the room, and honestly, we would just love to be ignored and just to be left alone to live our life.
But yeah, I do speak for MPI and PCMA and anyone else who wants to invite me out to speak. I educate folks on how to be inclusive in the meetings industry overall. So, I do have a special focus on the career, because that's the community that I'm a part of. But I also speak over, you know, like religious accessibility and disability accessibility and things like that. So, I am just trying to spread the word in our industry that, you know, if you're not having to think about these things, you are really, really blessed. But there are folks out there that do have to think about when I come to your conference, if I'm going to be able to use the bathroom or not, or, you know, if I'm going to have an area, if my religion needs me to pray during a whole eight-hour conference.
So, yeah, I just travel around and I try to do some, like, tips and tricks on how we can be more inclusive. Like I said, my hook is definitely on the queer community.
Tyler Davidson
And what are some of those tips and tricks for a person who might not be familiar with this population and maybe some of their unique needs at their meetings? What’s top of mind; things that meeting and event planners should know about making their meetings and events accessible and welcoming for transgender people.
Chase Brunson
Yeah. So I think the biggest thing that we can all do, and I think that we've all heard it a million times in the million years now, is that we can put our pronouns on our name badges. I don't understand why we are not doing that. I feel, honestly, really disappointed when I go to large events that are unfortunately done by PCMA or done by MPI, and we're not doing that.
So our organizations, our large organizations, we have to hold them accountable to doing this at their large conferences, because it's a trickle down effect. It's going to start with them, and it's going to proceed on to all the other industry folks. And if these, if these big companies, or these big organizations and big nonprofits are not doing that for us, they're not really setting a great example. And it's hard for, you know, smaller meeting planners, maybe the folks that are just getting starting in the industry to convince their boss to change something that has been done, quote, unquote the way it has always been done for however many years without that backup.
So I would say pronouns are a really big thing in your name badges. And I want to just point out that that helped more than just the queer community. You can have a straight woman who has a pixie cut walk into a bathroom and get called out right now. And I also just want to point out that tensions are really high for the trans community, so we're watching out for ourselves. We're watching out for queer folks, but we're also watching out for everyone who doesn't fit a traditional standard of a male or female look. And as meeting professionals, that's part of our job. We have to think about things like that.
So the pronouns is one of the easiest things that you can do. It it should be changing a format on your name badges. It shouldn't really be a problem. You can also do with ribbons. You know, like you go to some of the conferences and people have all the ribbons and hang out with their name tags. They have pronoun ones of those. That's very, very simple. It's something that I like to point out.
I have always been involved in professional development that needs reporting. So I have always needed to know my attendees legal names. But while I need to know that on the back end, other attendees don't need to know another attendees legal name, if they don't want them to know that.
So I always encourage folks, when you're having folks register for your conferences or for your events, if you need to get their real name, get it, but then have a place where they can put the name that they want reflected on their name badge. And again, I just want to point out that this helps more than just the queer community. It helps anybody who first name does not match the name that they go by. So my dad, his name is William, Donald Brunson Jr, and he goes by Don and so if you put William Brunson on his name tag, people at a conference are going to call him William, and he is never in his life gone by William. And that happens to a lot of people.
So that's a big thing in our industry. It's getting the names right on the names right on the name tag. So definitely, just having a preferred space or a name that you want on your name tag is one of the easiest thing that we can do to make our career community feel more comfortable. There's also, also always the bathroom issues. So pointing out in a conference directory where the bathrooms are located is helpful for everyone, where things like family bathrooms, or unisex bathrooms, or one stall bathrooms are is again, helpful for the trans community, the queer community in general. And then it can also help folks you know, maybe you have a breastfeeding mother who doesn't have a space whatever you know, she can go into a family bathroom. Or maybe somebody has kids with them for some reason.
So that's what I also always just really try when I, when I'm lecturing folks on inclusivity, is that we need to be looking at this from a larger a larger picture, a larger outlet, so we're not just trying to help one population with this. While it would, it will be really beneficial to this population. It's going to make our overall event or meeting way better.
Tyler Davidson
And you've been doing this for a while, what is your take on, sort of the interest or acceptance from, I guess mainstream planners. Are they embracing this is something I need to do to make sure that all of my attendees are comfortable and feel included.
Chase Brunson
Yes, absolutely. I get a lot of great feedback from folks that talk to me or reach out to me or reach out to other DEI planners as well. There's there's tons of us. MBI has a whole dei committee. PCMA is working on it. You can reach out to those organizations, and they can put you in contact with folks like me. You can reach out to meetings today, and they can put you in contact with folks like me. And so, yeah, we're getting a lot of good feedback. I think the like I said for me right now, the biggest stuff is how to convince a boss.
And so I think that I really just want to drill back down into a trickle down, like stuff where, if we're holding our larger organizations accountable, or you are a boss and you you know you're sitting here, you're like, I've done this in my organization, and my organization is 1,000 employees, like we've already done. So if you're listening to this and you're someone really high up in your company, I really encourage you to go ahead and you start making the change, because the folks below you are going to be apprehensive of approaching you. If you go ahead and set that, that you know that, that it'll be an easy change, but people are realizing that, yes, this matters. Consumers are paying attention.
So millennial, Gen Z, and I think we're all Gen A alpha or whatever. Now those groups pay a lot of attention to what folks are doing and where they spend their money. They're very, very, very, very in tune with where their dollar bills are going. And I'm seeing that in the events industry as well. People are choosing, you know, they're boycotting stuff. So just making it really known that you're out there and you're doing these things is going to go a long way.
So that's, you know, like putting dei statements on your websites, and working with local queer Chamber of Commerces to find vendors and places and things to do that are going to directly impact the city that you're in is really, really helpful. And so, yeah, I think that we're getting a lot of good feedback on this, and I think that we're just working on spreading the word right now, because everyone has been so, so receptive of it. We've just got to continue reaching more people with that message,
Tyler Davidson
and that's very encouraging to hear. You know, I guess maybe one of the next steps is when, if we start seeing leaders in organizations who are transgender people, including in our own industry, do you hold out hope that you may get more visibility in the C suite coming up.
Chase Brunson
Yes, I would absolutely love some just more generalized queer folks. They only have to be trans. We just need some more queer leadership. The queer population is really large, so I live in Austin right now. They release new demographics and stuff, and Austin is currently the third largest queer population in the US. New York ranks number one, I think. And then I think San Francisco next. And then it's Austin. We're like 6% of the population here. And so if you come to Austin and you are not creating events that are welcoming to this population, you literally missed out on 6% of the population. That is a huge it's a huge margin.
And so yes, I would say that queer folks are everywhere. I want to say that it feels like people are saying, Oh, there's more. That's not true. We've created an environment now in our world where folks are feeling more comfortable to come out, feeling more comfortable to express themselves in whatever way they are. You know, there's no longer this huge push to be binary.
So we're seeing more folks, you know, exploring gender and coming out as non binary, and presenting one way, but identifying another way. And so yes, this population exists, and they're being passed up for a lot of things, maybe because they're afraid to apply to positions that they don't think they're qualified for which we've seen in women and minorities are less likely to apply for jobs they don't know the qualifications for. And so I would love to see more queer folks in leadership positions. And I want to encourage companies, when you are hosting your jobs to almost start headhunting. At this point, these folks are potentially not going to apply to your positions, especially if you don't have like, the right things on your website, and you haven't made it completely known who you are and what you stand for, and it's a little wishy washy, or it's not quite black and white for folks, they might be afraid to apply.
And so if you've got, if you've got these, like, protections in place for them, if you have a really good, like, transgender like healthcare policy, your healthcare policy covers trans stuff. Reach out to trans folks and say that, hey, you know we're looking for this position, and this is what a healthcare policy looks like. Or reach out to a queer person and say, we're looking for this position, and we've got all of these Employee Resource stuff for queer folks, and we participate in the Pride Parade every year, and we do all this kind of stuff. And so yes, I would love to see more queer folks employed at higher levels, to where younger queer folks like myself can see them being successful. I just want to warn folks that it's it's probably not going to happen unless we actively are making the reaches and trying to get this in those positions. And
Tyler Davidson
you know, in the many years that we've been doing this, Trendsetters feature, you may be like the definition of a trendsetter. What is it like that term being to you? How would you define a meetings industry trendsetter?
Chase Brunson
Oh gosh, I would say someone who is maybe going above and beyond their traditional job duties. So no one, you know, I sat there and somebody taught me how to event plan, but no one, no one taught me how to like event plan [unintelligible] for folks, I had do that on my own experiences as a trans person, I knew kind of already what I needed, but I didn't know how to do that for folks with dietary restrictions and things like that. And so I had to go and do that research on my own. I didn't know how to I didn't know much about all the cultures. I didn't know about the praying thing for our Muslim friends during the day and stuff.
So I teach all that on my on my own and do all that research on my own. And so, I would say that the trendsetter is somebody who is looking at our industry and is trying to figure out a way to make it better for our attendees, make it better for the future of the industry, and make it better for the folks that are currently still in the industry. And that is what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get queer folks involved in the media industry. Because industry because I love it. I think that we're a great group of folks, and I think that we have the ability to change the world through our meetings, if we're willing to do it, if we're willing to step out and do that.
Tyler Davidson
What does the future look like for you in the meetings industry? How do you continue motivating yourself and then others through your work.
Chase Brunson
Yeah, so I consider myself a lifelong learner. I'm very much about continuously improving what I'm doing in the meetings industry, so I'm constantly taking PCMA and MPI, as you know, professional development courses. I earned my CMP really early in my career, and then, like I said, I just got my digital event strategist. So I would say for the for the rest of my career, I'm focusing on professional development. I think that we are always learning. And we never know everything, and we can always continue we learn. We can talk to our colleagues.
I always say my big mantra is we don't know what we don't know, and we're noticing unless we ask those questions, and sometimes those questions are uncomfortable and they're hard to ask, but you should ask them anyway. You should ask them to people who are knowledgeable in fields, like myself, like I'm perfectly happy building uncomfortable questions so that somebody else doesn't have to and so I think continuing on, I'm just I'm continuing to learn about the amazing industry. I would love to grow my career. I would love to become the C suite level employee. At some point, that's always my dream, to submit a vice president of something. So I'm holding on to that.
I am doing my own thing here in Austin. I do run a social organization called Local Queer, and we've been growing very, very rapidly over the last year. We're expanding to other cities and stuff, and we throw basically events. We do a lot of event planning for the queer community in Austin with the focus on queer women and the transgender population. And so I hope that Local Queer continues to grow and I can make that my career eventually, but right now, it is just continuing on my path of being in the meetings industry and working my way up the chain.
Tyler Davidson
You’re on the younger side, but you've already accomplished so much. What would be your advice to someone who's just entering the industry?
Chase Brunson
I would say that our industry is definitely all about connections. And so I I feel like I got a really leg up because I landed in a job that was part of an association. And so I knew from age 22 that professional associations existed, and actually joined one, and it would help me out a lot. And I feel like a lot of my generation and younger, we're not doing that. We don't know they exist. We're not joining our professional association.
So I would say that if you're just getting started, join MPI, join PCMA, join other…there's tons of other event groups that you can join that are even more specialized into maybe what you want to do. Join them. Go to their things. If they have local meetups, go meet your local industry connections. You know you need those things. You need AV providers, you'll need meeting planners, you'll need venues. And that's how I've gotten to where I am today.
I always say that my connections in the meetings industry have always felt more like friends than colleagues. There's not a hesitation that I can't call half of the folks that I know only from conferences. I may have only literally seen these people at conferences. And I could still call them up and say, Hey, I'm looking for a job right now. Can you help me out? Or I need this done right now. You're my area. Can you help me out? And our people in our industry will do it. So it's about making the connections really young, and keeping up with them and just staying really, really involved.
I've been on a couple of Board of Directors, and I'm 30 years old at this point, so I've been doing it since 22 I've been, you know, fundraising chairs of things, and getting involved in our industry, and networking and things will also get you exposed to things that you don't even realize that you like to do. So you might be a fundraising event planner and then turn around and you actually like conference planning instead, and you get that experience through being on the board of some sort.
So I definitely just say, if you're young and you're young and you're out there, just making those connections, getting involved, stepping outside of your comfort zone, is not hard to do at an industry conference. They're very fun. Go to something, and I promise you'll make connections. People will talk
Tyler Davidson
to you. Oh, thanks for joining us. Chase. Thank you for doing what you do. And I was just wondering if there's anything you would like to add for listeners to consider, and then, how can people get in touch with you?
Chase Brunson
Yeah, I think the only thing that I just want to reiterate is that trans folks are people too. They're no different than you listening to this podcast. I live my life, and I go to work every day and I come home every day, just like you do, and if you could spread that message to the folks that are not listening to the podcast, that would be great. I think that's what we need right now, is a lot more positivity around the transit community, that we are just humans, and there's nothing big and scary about us. We're just out here really trying to fly into flying under the radar, and our politicians will not let us. So we just want to live in peace, just like you do.
And I guess I would encourage you, if you can find a trans person to talk to, talk to them, learn their story, figure out where they how, why they are doing what they're doing. You know, if they're if they're doing things like I'm doing, and they're spreading their message, ask them why? Ask them questions. They're usually going to be a little bit more comfortable than somebody who's kind of like living off of the radar a little bit.
So, you know, talk to community leaders. That matters a lot. And then the ways of saying in contact with me I am on Instagram as Creating Chase. You can find me there. I post some stuff about my transition. It's also just my personal Instagram, and it's open for everybody to follow. I'm also on LinkedIn.
Tyler Davidson
Excellent. That'll work. So thanks again for joining us. Chase
Chase Brunson
Yeah, absolutely. I'm. Happy to be here. Thanks so much for having me.
Tyler Davidson
And that was Chase Brunson, an independent meeting and event planner, and also probably the foremost transgender rights advocate in the meetings and events industry.
I'm Tyler Davidson, Vice President and Chief Content Director of Meetings Today. Thanks for joining us for this special Trendsetter Tuesday podcast. We hope you enjoy it. If you want to check out more Trendsetter podcasts or any of our other podcasts, just head on over to meetingstoday.com. Check out our podcast section for a full roster of interviews with industry thought leaders.
So, thanks again for joining us today, and no matter what you're up to with the rest of it, go out and make it great.
