Defense Budgets Harmful to Golf Handicaps

We’ve known for a while now that as defense spending begins to dip, so too will attendance at industry conferences — but what we didn’t count on was the irreparable damage this would cause to the golf games and winter tans of defense execs and the Army’s General Officer corps.

After thirteen solid years of sun-splashed conventioneering each February in Ft. Lauderdale Fl., next year’s Association of the United States Army (AUSA) symposium will instead be held in the decidedly less tropical Raleigh, N.C., the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau announced on Feb. 6.

And this doesn’t look to be a one time thing. The group in Raleigh also said that AUSA has asked the city to hold February dates open through 2017.

The Raleigh event is expected to welcome approximately 3,500 attendees who will fill 3,375 room nights at area hotels and generate more than $4 million in economic activity, according to the Raleigh group. Michael M. Scanlan, director of industry for AUSA claimed in the statement that “Raleigh is an ideal destination for AUSA due to its proximity to military installations, and with many area companies in the defense industry, it creates a great opportunity for AUSA.”

The last AUSA show in Ft. Lauderdale kicks off in just 12 days, and might mark the last time that anyone from the defense industry will have to submit receipts for sun screen….unless, of course, the organization’s new LANPAC conference held in Honolulu, Hawaii in April really takes off.

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Paul McLeary

McLeary covers national security policies at the White House, Pentagon, the Hill, and State Department.
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