At this year’s Healthcare Convention Exhibitors Association (HCEA) annual conference, being held June 10-12 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, attendees can for the first time earn credit toward the Certified Manager of Exhibits (CME) designation. The CME is a professional designation awarded by the Trade Show Exhibitors Association (TSEA), and credit will be awarded with the TSEA’s cooperation.

The program was announced at the HCEA’s June 11 business meeting by Frank Corcoran, director of convention promotion at Wyeth Ayerst Laboratories and outgoing HCEA president. Corcoran also announced a research grant program for college-level students interested in conducting quantitative research about the effectiveness of healthcare exhibit marketing effectiveness, as well as a major study on the impact of exhibiting at a medical conference. The latter will be sponsored by Pri-Med, (the Primary Medicine Today conference) and Exhibit Surveys; the two organizations will collaborate on a diary survey of 200 attendees at a Pri-Med conference later this year.