Photo Album

We gathered:

San Antonio is a very cool city. Various STEP members found time to check out the city's famous Riverwalk, a below-street oasis from urban noise chocked full of restaurants, shops, exotic plants, and musicians.

We blathered:

For the first time, STEP offered a pre-meeting workshop.

Based on the warm reception to Bill McKendree's guest presentation at the spring meeting, he offered to give us a free sneak preview of the Organizational Design workshop he'll be offering to the public next year.

If you're interested, see: The Clarion Group

Jack Tootson, Jacqueline Meyers, and Judy Issokson concentrating on Bill's techniques for OD diagnosis and treatment.

Another break: In the foreground, Judy Issokson and Charlene Ashton.

The USAA campus is huge! On a visit to the main building, Mike Dickinson uses a scale model to orient Gena Jeneroux, Malcolm Roberts, Marilyn Martin, and Susana Sipes.

An end-view of the scale model reflected in the plexiglass cover gives an other-worldly perspective.

Susana, Malc, and Marilyn leaving the main USAA building.

Inside headquarters is this marvelous sunset tapestry. The real sunsets in Texas weren't bad either.

STEP met:

Outside the McDermott Conference Center Annex where our regular STEP meeting was held.

The facility originated as a traditional Texas ranch house, then became former USAA Chairman Bob McDermott's home before being converted to a conference facility upon his retirement.

USAA's Sandy Quesada shared her approach to reorganizing the training function.

Here she chats with Don Duvall before we got underway.

Jonathan Ward was back with us after a several-years hiatus. Formerly, Jonathan was with FreddieMac; now he represents Capital One.

Jacqueline Meyers clearly admires his business card.

Don Duvall demonstrated various aspects of a Grainger technology-based "Customer Segment Taining" R&D project aimed at improving sales effectiveness in three ways:

* ID account needs
* ID product oppt'ys
* Broaden contact base at account

The software uses gaming, simulations, and performance support references.

A key feature of the program was this "cut away" menu, offering users a virtual tour of a manufacturing plant.

From the cut away, you could select a plant area for detailed inspection. When you identified a sales opportunity in that area, you could link out to Grainger.com - their on-line catalog.

Finally, "Probes" - such as this Purchasing Probe - provide performance support structure and selected questions for various account personnel interviews.

We 'et":

Thursday night dinner took us to a superb Chinese restaurant. (Ah, the shrimp toast! ... among other things.)

From left to right: Wayne Hays, Judy Issokson, Karen Clarke, and Malcolm Roberts.

Chinese food was a nice change from Tex-Mex, the epitome of which was a "brisket quesadilla."

Far side, left to right: Jonathan Ward, Jack Tootson, Marilyn Martin, and Jacqueline Meyers.

Near side, the back of Pat Golden's head (again!), Malcolm Roberts, and Karen Clarke.

Far side, left to right: Adele Hall (Craig's wife), Craig Hall, and Wayne Hays.

Near side, Jacqueline, Marilyn, and Jack.

Our end of the table had a great time chatting with Adele - learning about Chinese culture, lucky numbers, how she and Craig met, and the biography of Jackie Chan!

Here's a big 8 for Adele.

Tough to see, but at the far end of the table is Pat Golden's face! And beside her, Gina Generoux's face as well!

Beside Gina are Jonathan, Jack, Marilyn, and Jacqueline.