This year’s conference was a lot of fun, and we had a very strong turnout at the corporate history tour, luncheon, and session.
Kentucky is known for its bourbon and brandy, so we couldn’t pass up a tour of the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience and Copper and Kings American Brandy Company!
At the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, we learned about the company’s history back to 1783. It was interesting to see how they incorporated corporate history with lessons on how bourbon is made. We even got to do a tasting at the end.
Copper and Kings was founded just two years ago, but it was nice to see how they preserved and are reusing a building that used to be a tannery. We learned how they make brandy and absinthe, and got to experience the loud music they play in their barrel room so the vibrations can gently age the brandy.
For the luncheon, our guest speaker was Greg McCoy, Senior Archivist at The Procter & Gamble Company. Greg talked about the history of P&G and the hundreds of brands whose histories they collect. He focused on key principles on how to handle divestitures and acquisitions.
Our session was also a crowd-pleaser. Katie Frassinelli, the Marketing/Communcations Manager with the National Corvette Museum, spoke about the huge sinkhole that formed in the museum, and what they did to turn a negative into a positive.
The video was especially interesting, as was the discussion that followed.
We rounded out the corporate history portion of the conference with a History Happy Hour at the Troll Pub a few blocks from the hotel, where we enjoyed dinner and drinks with new friends from the corporate history and legal history fields.
A big thank you goes out to our Corporate History Committee members, our speakers, and the organizers of the event! If you missed the conference this year, plan to visit Louisville in the near future and mark your calendars for next year’s meeting. The 2016 AASLH Annual Meeting will take place Sept. 14-17 in Detroit, MI.
See you there!
