Columbia Ultimate Concludes Successful Annual Client Conference with Valuable Insights into the Dynamic Collection Industry

VANCOUVER, Wash.—Collection professionals from around the country gathered from September 27th to October 1st in Portland, Oregon for Columbia Ultimate’s annual Art of Success conference. This year’s conference agenda included engaging networking opportunities to exchange best practices, an array of noteworthy industry leaders discussing collection industry trends, and the latest technology and tools to increase effectiveness and drive innovation.

Irreantum Services’ Mark Gilbert kicked-off Art of Success with his keynote address, “Imagine the Possibilities: Innovation in Leadership,” which challenged participants to leave workplace comfort zones and to consider looking at team challenges through different perspectives. The presentation also acknowledged the benefits of new technology trends, while underscoring the importance of putting people first and growing trust and communication before investing in technology.

Additional conference presenters included industry skip-tracing expert Ron Brown, president and general manager of CSI Group, and co-author of Manhunt: The Book. Brown shared lessons on new technology and tools that can be used in the tracing and recovery industry. Attendees also heard from John Bedard, managing partner of Bedard Law Group. Bedard discussed how recent changes in laws are affecting the collections industry and how collectors can take important steps to minimize risk when using technology.

“This year’s conference was designed to educate collections professionals on evolving technology and industry trends and to inspire them to develop new approaches that will assist them in improving their collection efforts,” said R. Fred Houston, Columbia Ultimate’s president & CEO.

In addition to the more than 30 educational sessions offered, the conference also featured in-depth training, helping clients to further optimize their use of technology and share best practices.

“The Art of Success sessions are extremely relevant to the issues that we are dealing with everyday—doing more with less resources and learning to maximize the use the of the available technology is critical to our success,” said Scott Brownlee, Executive Director of Operations at Grimley Financial Corporation. “We have already seen significant gains in efficiency and effectiveness from implementing the items we learned at this year’s conference.”

Click here for more highlights from Art of Success 2010.

About Columbia Ultimate
Columbia Ultimate is an expert in delivering integrated technology solutions and services for enhancing business intelligence, maximizing performance and profitability for the collection industry. Since 1979, the company has led ongoing innovation in debt collection software technology, delivering results-oriented offerings that empower organizations to effectively manage and address new and growing challenges in an ever-increasing competitive collection environment. Today, collection agencies, banks, healthcare and retail organizations, along with state, county and local governments across the country rely on Columbia Ultimate for their collection needs. Columbia Ultimate is privately held with headquarters in Vancouver, Wash. More information is available at www.columbiaultimate.com.