Bob Imperata spent nearly his entire working career in Pittsburgh, with only a brief four-year stint in Boston prior to joining the Pittsburgh Convention and Visitors Bureau (now VisitPittsburgh) 39 years ago. He held a number of titles, including director of sales, before being named the executive vice president in 1985. He retired from VisitPittsburgh on Sept. 1, 2007.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishments?

I saw two convention centers be built. The first one opened in 1981, and it wasn't a forward-thinking political community then. We advocated a 300,000-square-foot building, which politicians thought was too big, so they cut it in half. Then because of budgeting, the 150,000-square-foot building turned into 131,000 square feet. It was small and not very functional.

I feel like the biggest accomplishment I can chalk up is getting the second convention center built. We put on a drive to get a new building, which consummated in 2004 with the opening of the new convention center: We tripled the size of the old building.

As part of that process I was named to join a 15-person Southwestern Pennsylvania Convention Center Design Commission, a legislatively mandated commission with various industries represented. I had tremendous input on the design and style and format of the convention center. I say every person on the commission each had an axe to grind, and mine was to see that the building was functional and flexible so we could do different things with it. Having a hands-on approach allowed us to get the kind of building we wanted. We were able to keep politics out of it, bring in the proper consultants, and look at the footprint of the center and what we wanted to do with that footprint. It's the world's largest green convention center. And almost all parts of the old building were recycled. Every year we've exceeded the expectations from the management company in terms of how much business will be booked.

What about your greatest moments with Pittsburgh?

Thirty years ago Pittsburgh was thought of as a smoky steel town, one that people didn't have an interest in visiting. Turning that perception around and helping to put Pittsburgh on the meeting and convention map ranks as a great moment, although it's not one specific moment. It happened around what we classified as the second renaissance.

The original renaissance in the city took place after WWII when they started to filter the steel mills and clean up the air and work to clean up the rivers. Then in the mid- to late- '80s a second renaissance took place with more physical developments and the creation of a cultural district, and we really began to get some additional funding for tourism. We started bringing potential visitors and buyers in for site visits. Once people saw what we had, we started to make a conversion. We're to the point now that we're averaging about one convention site visit per working day of the year. Our conversion ratio on those people who come in and kick the tires and then at some point sign a contract is about 80 percent to 85 percent.

What would you have done differently?

Destination marketing organizations need to have a very strong say in the development of their communities so they can be more user-friendly to meetings and conventions. It took a while for us to make that happen. What's important - and what I would have done differently - is to have had the chance earlier in my career to have our organization at the table to talk about the planning of community facilities and attractions and infrastructure.

We finally got to be part of the planning process rather than to have something handed to us. In our community and in other communities, there is a whole group of entities that do these things - the city planning commission, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the Cultural Trust. That makes it harder. But now, for instance, the CEO of the Cultural Trust is on our board, so we're aware of what he's looking at for future developments, and we can say what convention planners are looking for. With the convention center, we raised the money to fund the Convention Needs Assessment Study, so that put us in the middle of it. You can start to get a foothold as we did with the convention center, and people start to bring you into the picture a little more. There's a need to be at the table.

Your thoughts about the future of this industry?

I see nothing but blue skies for the meetings industry. We all know what happened on Sept. 11; that caused us as an industry not only a lot of grief but a lot of dollars and people are still feeling the effects of it. The meetings and convention business is back where it was, but it took a long time to get there. Those are the things we have to hope don't happen, and they're the things that are beyond our control.

What were your biggest challenges?

There were a lot of major challenges as technology was coming into full swing a number of years ago. Everyone was vying for the perfect formula to mine and collect data. Those were very trying times, and there was a lot of guesswork as to who was going to have the best mousetrap … and whether the mousetrap was going to cost you an arm and a leg. We went with an organization that made us kind of a guinea pig. We helped them develop a whole data processing program that put us at the forefront, but it also cost us time and energy.

How are you spending your time now?

I have a contract with VisitPittsburgh to do some consulting, and I've been asked by a couple of other associations to do consulting. In January, I'll become the chair for the Pennsylvania Society of Association Executives. That's giving me the opportunity to still have some say in the association world. The good news is that I'm doing that on my own schedule rather than on someone else's.

I can do some things now that I couldn't do for the last 43 years, like spend time with family, spend time in Florida, make a trip to Italy. I have two grandchildren in the Pittsburgh area, and tomorrow I'm going to my granddaughter's open house at her school. I couldn't do that before because I'd still be in the office. I'm really enjoying myself.

Any advice for those hitting their stride in this industry?

Clearly technology has been one of the biggest changes in the industry with the advent of Web sites and e-mail and needing to respond at a moment's notice to something. My concern with all that is losing touch with the personal side of our industry. I obviously come from the old school, but I always have a concern that the salespeople are losing touch with the day-to-day [business] of the clients. You can't do the same thing by e-mail that you can do by telephone or face to face. You still need to be in the marketplace, at trade shows, in the primary markets that you serve. If our salespeople are not there and are depending on e-mail, then we're missing out on that human touch. One of the advantages of being in the same place for nearly 40 years is that people knew I'd be there to fulfill the promises I made. They came to rely on that. We're in a relationship-building industry, and you can't let those relationships slip by.

Contributing Editor Ginny Phillips is a freelance writer in Birmingham, Ala.