Meet Our WBEs


Claudette Stroble
President
Orlando Conference Management Group, Inc.
Orlando, FL – www.ocmg.net
2010 WBENC Star Award Winner, representing the WBDC in Florida

Claudette Stroble started Orlando Conference Management Group in 1993 after a 25 year career with General Electric. Her last job with the company was as manager of marketing programs at the GE Horizons pavilion in EPCOT at Walt Disney World.  Many of her jobs included managing sales conferences and seminars for customers as well as meetings and events for corporate executives.  So she had the experience and the industry contacts to start her own business. 

And she was accustomed to change.  “I grew up in a small city in upstate New York; the only professional women I can remember seeing were nurses and teachers.  I expected to get a good job after college and I guess I expected to get promoted, but it I never expected to go off and start my own company!” Claudette says.  She graduated from college in the ‘60s, an era in which “the women’s movement hadn’t really moved much yet.”  The now accepted concept of women in business was just beginning to take shape.  And there were the usual challenges along the way.

But a series of good jobs and supportive mentors would ultimately make starting a business an easy decision.   When she founded her company, Claudette never doubted that it would take off. “I didn’t have a lot of fears.  I assumed that the business would work – and it did.”  She was so sure the company would succeed that she hired another meeting planner to work with her right from the start.  Initially, they managed meetings only in Orlando. But that changed quickly as clients asked them to do all of their meetings, wherever they went. Her company now also includes a Vacation Department that provides discounts on Disney resorts, Disney cruises and Adventures by Disney trips to corporations that include the offer on their Employee Discount websites.

Claudette serves on the Women’s Business Development Council’s site visit team and interviews about 30 women business owners every year.  “I love doing this – I learn so much from these women.  Being a business owner is very challenging and even solitary in some respects.  We’re focused on the success of the company and often we don’t have someone we can be candid with about things.  So it’s important to spend time with peers … find out what they’re doing, how they’re solving problems.  It’s not always easy to put aside the time to do that.  But when you run a business, you’ve got to keep learning - every day - from your employees, your customers, from the competition.  My involvement with WBDC gives me that kind of learning opportunity – whether it’s doing site visits or taking part in educational programs or talking with other women business owners.  It’s also a fabulous way to meet corporate people who are prospective customers ... and that’s enormously important to all of us!”


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