Al Rickard

Al Rickard is a Certified Association Executive (CAE) with 30 years of experience in communications, marketing, publishing, public affairs, and association management. He is president of ASSOCIATION VISION, a communications company that provides services to a large client base of associations and corporations that sell to associations. He launched this company in 2000 following a long career working for major associations in the Washington, DC area.

In the late 1990s, Rickard served as Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs at the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives (GWSAE), where he integrated the public relations, government affairs, and publishing operations into an expanded Communications Department.

He also led a major division of one of the nation's largest trade associations, serving as Senior Vice President for Member Services & Marketing at the National Food Processors Association.

He also served as Vice President of Communications and Government Relations at the International Association of Convention & Visitor Bureaus (now the Destination Marketing Association International), where he spearheaded association involvement in the first-ever White House Conference on Travel and Tourism, developing and implementing a strategy to nominate and install 235 CVB executives as delegates to the conference.

Rickard spent several years as Vice President of Communications at the Snack Food Association, where he created and launched a consumer public relations campaign, National Snack Food Month and published Snack World magazine.

Earlier in his career, Rickard was the first Section Newsletter Editor at the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and was the first Editor of USAE newspaper, an independent trade journal covering the association/meetings/hospitality industry.