WP&BC Portland 2022 Spring Conference  

Thursday, April 28, 2022
7:30 AM to 5:00 PM
Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR

We are excited to announce the return of our Spring Conference, the premier event for benefits professionals and employers in Oregon and Southwest Washington. The conference offers an ideal opportunity to learn from industry leaders and network with other professionals. 

Early-Bird Registration Pricing (through April 1, 2022)

Portland Chapter Member: $200.00

Non-Member: $250.00

Regular Registration Pricing (beginning April 2, 2022)

Portland Chapter Member: $250.00

Non-Member: $350.00

Please click here for the agenda. 

Keynote Speakers

Keynote: Leadership, Culture, and the Future of Work in a World in Flux

April Rinne

The past year and a half has seen the world flip upside-down in myriad ways. Individually, organizationally, and societally, we have faced countless changes, unknowns, and "certain uncertainty" -- perhaps nowhere more so than in the workplace. Pre-pandemic, remote work was a novelty; now it's mainstream. The Great Resignation has sent shockwaves through organizations and entire sectors alike. Workers are rethinking their careers, priorities, and professional identities. Hybrid work has more questions than answers. And yet, in many ways we're just getting started: The future portends more uncertainty, more unknowns, and more change. What does this mean for talent, leadership, organizational culture, and what really matters, period?

In this keynote address, April Rinne will shine light on the forces that are shaping this future of work in flux and how leaders and organizations alike can best prepare for what's ahead. Drawing on more than 25 years' experience as a futurist, globetrotter, and "change navigator," April will weave insights and wisdom from her new book FLUX: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change that will reframe how you think about uncertainty, help you get comfortable with ambiguity, reassess your (and your team's) needs and strategies, and lead responsibly in this ever-changing world.

Read more about April here. 

Keynote: Cybersecurity

Mike Fuller, Info Security Senior Engineer, Principal Financial Group

Cybersecurity: Why it matters now, and what to do about it. Key items every business should know about cyber security and attacks, and actionable steps they can take to protect themselves now. 

Mike Fuller supports the IT security function for the retirement division of Principal Financial Group. He serves as an IT security engineer, working with the business information security officer.  His responsibilities include providing security guidance/direction to our engineering teams. Additionally, Mike is responsible as part of the security team for incident management, client questions, and other security related needs.

Mike has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Computer Information Systems from the University of Texas at El Paso. Mike has over 19 years of experience working in IT, mostly in architecture, leadership, and security roles. He holds CISSP and CISM information security certifications. Mike is a member several industry relevant organizations including FS-ISAC, SPARK, SecDSM and DAMA.

Keynote: 7 Principles to Creating a Winning Culture

Sean Murray

A positive culture is an organizational super-power because it streamlines and aligns decision making up and down the organization. In a high-performing culture, you don’t need a unique policy or set of rules to instruct employees on how to act in every possible situation, employees simply act in accordance with the culture, and that tends to both have a good result and reinforce the culture.

"Culture eats strategy for lunch," Peter Drucker famously said, but it's not always clear how leaders establish and maintain the kind of culture that creates durable competitive advantage. 

In this interactive presentation, Sean Murray, author of  If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory, uses the improbable story of the 1984 US men's olympic volleyball team and their transformation from mediocrity to the number one team in the world, to teach the principles of creating a winning culture. 

In the early 1980s, a golden generation of young talented athletes joined the national team  – Karch Kiraly, the emerging star, would one day be named "volleyball player of the century," – but at the time, they would buckle under pressure and they weren't playing as a team.

To address the issue, the coach enrolled the team in an 3-week Outward Bound course, snowshoeing through the Abajo Mountains of Southeastern Utah, and hiking through the labyrinthine canyons of Canyonlands National Park.  

Most of the players were from Southern California and had learned to play volleyball on the beach. The players were out of their element and pushed to the limit.  It was highly controversial and full of drama, but somewhere in the wilderness, reliant on each other for survival, the players discovered what it meant to be a team.  

The players used this newfound trust to develop an innovative approach to volleyball – the "American System" – that changed not only their success on the court but the sport itself on a global scale, and placed them within grasp of their Olympic quest for gold.

Book: If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory.

Sean P. Murray has over twenty years’ experience in leadership and organization development.  As the founder and CEO of RealTime Performance, Sean helps organizations unleash the human factors that drive business success.  Our services include facilitating programs in leadership, inclusion, decision making, team building, business acumen and innovation.   

RealTime Performance clients including Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, FedEx & Nordstrom. Prior to founding RealTime Performance in 1999, Sean worked for GE Capital at the Center for Learning & Organizational Excellence.   

Sean Murray is the author of If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory, about the 1984 U.S. men’s national volleyball team and their improbable journey to a gold medal.  Sean also writes a blog on personal leadership at: www.realtimeperformnace.com, hosts the weekly podcast The Good Life: https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/the-good-life/ and publishes a monthly newsletter: https://www.realtimeperformance.com/newsletter/.

Sean has an undergraduate degree from the University of Puget Sound in Mathematics and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Oregon.

Professional Accreditation Credits

AIF (pending), ASPPA, CFP (pending), CLE OSB (pending), CPE for CPAs, CEBS, ERPA, NIPA, JBEA, and SHRM.

Oregon Convention Center COVID-19 Safety Measures

Click here for COVID-19 safety measures implemented by the Oregon Convention Center.