Montpelier keynote speaker for association conferences and state agency events.
Chris Sund is a keynote speaker, Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach, and sitting executive who leads national healthcare staffing organizations. He speaks on workforce motivation, leadership, retention, and human potential for Vermont associations, state agencies, hospitals, long-term care providers, and employers across the central Vermont region.
Response within one business day.
Your team does not live here. They drive here, and at five o’clock they leave.
Montpelier is the least populous state capital in the country, with just over eight thousand residents. On a weekday morning that number roughly doubles and then some, climbing toward twenty thousand as the workforce arrives from Barre, Berlin, Northfield, Waterbury, and the towns along the Winooski. By evening it empties again.
That does something specific to a workplace, and it is worth naming out loud rather than working around. In most small cities you can lean on the fact that people are rooted where they work. Their kids go to school down the street, their neighbors are their coworkers, and the job is woven into a life. In Montpelier that is mostly not true. For a large share of your staff, this city is a place they commute into and a parking spot they pay for. The workplace is not embedded in a community. The workplace has to be the community, for eight hours, and then everyone scatters across three counties.
The second thing is the pay floor. State government employs somewhere around a quarter to a third of the people working in this city. That means almost every other employer in Montpelier, including the hospitals, the associations, the nonprofits, and the insurance and professional firms, is recruiting against a state benefits package they cannot match on paper. When you cannot win on the offer sheet, what is left is the daily experience of working for a particular supervisor. That is a narrow lever, and it is the one this session is built around.
Chris runs national healthcare staffing organizations and has keynoted state association conferences in eleven states, including LeadingAge Illinois and health care associations in Iowa, Montana, South Dakota, and Colorado.
Operator, Not Consultant
President and COO of national healthcare staffing organizations, still making the hiring and retention calls he speaks about.
Association Conference Work
State association annual meetings and general sessions are the format he works in most often, which is the format Montpelier hosts.
Built for Small Rooms
Sessions scale down cleanly. A forty person in-service day gets the same preparation as a general session.
Groups Chris speaks for.
Montpelier holds an unusual concentration of statewide member organizations for a city its size, because the capital is where Vermont’s associations sit. These are the kinds of groups that book a workforce and leadership keynote for an annual meeting, a member education day, or a board retreat.
- Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, headquartered on Main Street in Montpelier, the member owned organization representing Vermont’s hospitals on advocacy, policy, education, and research
- Vermont Medical Society, founded in 1813 and based in Montpelier, representing roughly two thousand physicians across the state
- Vermont League of Cities and Towns, founded in 1967 and headquartered on Main Street, running educational workshops and training for municipal officials statewide, which is a natural fit for a leadership general session
- Vermont Health Care Association, based just outside the city in the Barre area, representing skilled nursing and long-term care providers
- Vermont Chamber of Commerce, which lists a Montpelier mailing address and works from the adjacent Berlin and Barre area, along with the Central Vermont Chamber
- State agencies and departments across the Agency of Human Services, Agency of Education, and the rest of the executive branch, for in-service and leadership development days
- Local SHRM chapters, school districts, and Vermont’s colleges and training institutions
Montpelier employers facing the same problem.
Healthcare is where Chris operates, but the recruiting math in a capital city applies to every employer inside it.
State Government
Agencies and departments where leadership development happens through in-service days rather than outside conferences, and where the supervisor layer carries most of the retention weight.
Insurance and Financial Services
Montpelier has a long history as an insurance town, with National Life among the city’s largest private employers and a meaningful share of the workforce in finance, insurance, and real estate.
Nonprofits and Advocacy
The dense cluster of statewide nonprofits and member organizations that locate here to be near the State House, most running small teams with no room for a bad hire.
Education and Municipal Government
School districts, the city itself, and the municipal officials VLCT serves across Vermont’s towns.
Montpelier and central Vermont venues.
- Downtown Montpelier hotels and conference space for association annual meetings and member education days
- The State House and nearby state office buildings for agency in-service and leadership sessions
- Barre and the Barre Opera House area for larger regional gatherings
- Berlin, where central Vermont’s hospital and medical campus sits just outside the city
- Northfield, Waterbury, and the surrounding towns the Montpelier workforce commutes from
- Stowe and the resort venues used for Vermont board retreats and executive gatherings
Montpelier events Chris speaks at.
Association Conferences
Statewide association annual meetings and general sessions, the format Chris works in most often and the one Montpelier hosts most.
Long-Term and Senior Care
Skilled nursing, assisted living, and continuing care conferences and in-service days across central Vermont.
Hospital and Health System Events
Leadership days, nurse recognition events, and system meetings for Vermont hospitals.
Corporate and Annual Meetings
All-hands gatherings, employee appreciation events, and annual meetings for Montpelier employers.
HR and SHRM Chapter Events
Human resources conferences and chapter meetings on hiring, retention, and competing for staff against a state benefits package.
Rural and Critical Access Healthcare
Leadership days for the community hospitals serving Vermont’s rural counties.
Keynote topics for your Montpelier event.
Every session is customized for the audience, the format, and what you are actually trying to change.
See what conference organizers and HR leaders have said after booking Chris.
Booking a keynote speaker in Montpelier
Has Chris spoken in Vermont before?
Does Chris travel to Montpelier?
Our audience is small. Is that a problem?
We compete with state government for staff and cannot match the benefits. Does the session help?
Most of our people commute in from other towns. Does that change anything?
What does a Montpelier keynote cost?
Can Chris speak virtually to a Vermont audience?
Bring Chris to your Montpelier event.
Send your date, location, and audience. You will get availability and a quote back within one business day.
info@chrissund.com · 402-212-5771 · Vermont speaking · All locations
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