Meet Meagan Miller, CALIE’s New Event Manager

A lot goes into an event people actually want to attend. The sessions matter, and so do the parts in between: the hallway conversations, the way it feels to walk in, the people you meet over coffee, and the small details that make it easier to learn something and take it home.

That is why we are glad to welcome Meagan Miller as CALIE’s new Event Manager. She will help us bring Spring Forward and future CALIE events to life.

She started in hotels, then found the link between events and learning

Meagan began her career on the hotel side of the events world. That is where she learned that a good experience depends on the details people only notice when they are missing, and on teams that work well together.

From there she moved into association event planning, and that is where she saw the connection between events and professional learning.

That connection is the whole point at CALIE. Our events are where educators invest in themselves, find new ideas, meet people who understand their work, and go home ready to try something different.

That is the kind of event we want to run, and it helps to have someone on the team who sees it the same way.

Her first big project is Spring Forward

One of Meagan’s first big projects with CALIE is helping shape Spring Forward, our annual gathering of California educators and leaders, coming up March 18 through 20, 2027 in Palm Springs, with preconference sessions on March 17.

There will be schedules, room sets, microphones, catering counts, and signage. All of that has to work, and Meagan knows how to make it work.

But the bigger goal is setting up the conditions for something more useful to happen. We want educators to find people they can learn with. We want sessions that produce ideas worth taking back to a school or a classroom. And we want attendees to leave feeling that the time they spent on their own growth was worth it, even in a full calendar.

With Meagan’s background in hospitality and association events, we can put more care into those details than we have before.

California roots, good books, and paddle boarding dogs

CALIE is a California organization, so it fits that Meagan has lived in both Southern and Northern California.

Outside of work she reads a lot and travels a lot, usually with her husband and their two dogs. Some of those trips apparently involve paddle boarding. With the dogs. We have follow up questions.

For now, we are simply glad to have Meagan on the team. As CALIE’s programs and community keep growing, we want to keep building events where educators feel welcome, meet people worth knowing, and leave with something they can use. Meagan will be a big part of that.

Help us welcome Meagan Miller to CALIE. And if you are joining us at Spring Forward this March in Palm Springs, stop by and say hello.