Education is one of the core purposes of  the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the TMA.  Providing the tools and resources to enable our members to remain current in developments within the practice of turnaround management is taken very seriously.  Education is an expectation of both our members and our leadership which is reflected in our programming.  While one can observe informal education occurring at each of our 40+ events throughout the year whenever members interact, the following demonstrates the value we place upon continuing education.

Breakfast Forums
The centerpiece of the Chapter’s educational programming is its five Breakfast Forums held each year.  Four of these are typically planned around a coordinated theme and focus on current issues that impact participants in the turnaround space.  Past topics have included lenders’ appetite for ABL finance, use of alternative sources of financing in the capital structure, commercial real estate mortgage market and approach to due diligence with turnaround targets.  Our annual turnaround of the year award program features case studies on successful turnarounds and includes small and large corporate as well as pro bono undertakings.

Regional Conference
The annual MidAmerica Conference  features a full day of presentations including an economic update session and concurrent programming that offers participants the opportunity to select from multiple topics depending upon each individual’s personal preference.  These conferences are held throughout the region and have been hosted in Illinois,  Michigan and, in 2011, Minnesota.  We incorporate wide ranging perspectives in our educational events including financial, legal, and regulatory ramifications and inputs.

Educational Workshops
Our Chapter has been instrumental in both developing and conducting educational workshops each year that allow members to delve into specific topics in great detail, which provides significant benefit to the practitioner.  Workshops topics have included the finer points of workouts, working with troubled family businesses and distressed debt investing.  Attendees at these sessions receive hands-on training with real world examples of activities in the turnaround space that prepare them as participants in future transactions

The Chapter is particularly proud of its “13-Week Cash Flow” workshop.  This workshop was developed by and for the benefit of the Chapter’s members.  In fact, the workshop has been so successful, it was adopted by TMA International and is now used in all of the TMA chapters.

In addition, we encourage our members to publish well researched and thoughtful articles on various topics related to turnaround management and feature these articles in our quarterly newsletter as well as our website. In addition we solicit and publish educational articles prepared by our sponsors which provides our members access to some of the brightest minds in the business and enables our membership to remain current on a variety of pertinent topics – even if their schedules do not allow time to attend training sessions in person.  

Education is a cornerstone of our Chapter’s service undertaking to our members, and we invite prospective and existing new members to take advantage of fantastic learning opportunities and  to avail themselves to all of the developmental resources we make available throughout the year.  Please visit the Current Calendar of Events on our website or  consult the Articles and News section for relevant topics of interest to you and plan to attend one of our upcoming education events .