Lauren Kramer-Whelan, director of meetings with the Alexandria, Va. — based American Academy of Otolaryngology, says she's “thrilled” at having placed the winning bid of $270,000 on a Washington, D.C. Convention Center package worth $500,000 at the ASAE Foundation's silent auction, held during ASAE's annual meeting in August. This was the largest donation the silent auction has had to date.
Kramer-Whelan said her organization just met at the existing center for a meeting in 2000 and is booked at the new one in 2007. “We had a tentative hold on the space for 2012, and we're going to apply it toward that.” She's in the middle of doing her future bookings, and “It just thrilled me to put $270,000 in the 2012 column.” Proceeds from the package, which was donated by the Washington Convention and Tourism Corp., go to the ASAE Foundation.