Thursday, January 21, 2010

ASIS apparently has plenty of money to toss around

So, ASIS announced that their keynotes would be Captain Sully of Miracle on the Hudson fame, Dave Barry of generally being hilarious fame, and former Prime Minister of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf. While I don't doubt that General has some interesting things to say about the GWOT, I have to wonder about ASIS's budget. According to Gen. Musharraf's wilipefia page (to which I am unable to link because I am blogging on my iPhone), he gets "$150,000 to $200,000... for a day plus jet and other VIP arrangements on the ground" according to one of the PR firms trying to land a piece of that sweet, sweet speaker fee moolah. Probably somewhat inflated but not by much. Good to hear ASIS spends my membership dues wisely. Now I know why the PSP prep classes are so expensive.

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3 comments:

John Honovich said...

Captain Sully is at least $40,000 according to this website: http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerID=6592

Dave Barry is less expensive: 25k - 40k: http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerId=645#

I am curious if these speakers drive attendance. For me, I'd rather hear more security focused topics. Captain Sully is a hero but his experiences and background are at best indirectly related to security.

The CameraMan said...

Put it this way: I'm interested in hearing them all speak, and if they fit in my schedule I'll stop by, but the speakers play no role in my decision of whether or not to go

Ksenia Coffman said...

Interesting... I'm pretty sure that Rice at 2009 ASIS created a lot of buzz, media coverage and people generally wanted to hear her speak. This line up - hmm, not so much!