Family And Consumer Science Conference

I watched a state-level coordinator burn through their entire annual professional development budget in forty-eight hours because they treated their first national Family And Consumer Science Conference like a vacation instead of a tactical deployment. They sent four staff members to a high-profile city, booked a block of rooms at the premium resort without checking the federal per diem rates, and spent three months designing a glossy tri-fold brochure that ended up in the hotel trash cans by Friday night. By the time they realized that the real networking was happening in the invitation-only curriculum committee meetings and not on the trade show floor, they had zero capital left to pivot. They flew home with a stack of business cards from people who were