History of Nerve
nerve (nûrv) n. 1. a. Courage and control under pressure. b. Fortitude; stamina. c. Forceful quality; boldness. d. bravery and determination e. Brazen boldness; effrontery. f. The quality of being bold and enterprising g. An annual gathering of the most influential group of Entrepreneurs on the Eastern Coast of the United States.
In 2007/8, EO launched a pilot of the Learning Director position in the United States. Steven Showalter was appointed to this position for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic areas. As Learning Director, Steve’s responsibility was to insure that the Learning Chairs in these chapters had the resources and training to successfully deliver events to their members. As Steve began to learn more about these chapters, it quickly became evident that both the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic had seasoned pros running their learning programs and the best thing he could do to support them was to give them a tool to take their learning to an even higher level. At the President’s meeting, held in Miami, he pitched the idea of an event where all 8 of these chapters combined their learning budgets for one month and host one mega-event. The concept of Nerve was born. In addition to Showalter, key supporters of the original concept were Matt Weiss (EO NYC), Peter Bredlau (EO NJ), Mark Russo (EO NJ), Sally Hurley (EO DC), Eric Crews (EO Bos), Frank Signorello (EO Phi), Ralph Deandria (EO WNY), Clark Waterfall (RD & EO Bos), Becky Roemen (EO Global), and several others. All were vital to the launch of the event.
After buy in from the President’s, the planning began. The “founding committee” comprised of Steve Showalter (Event Chair), Matt Weiss (Learning Chair), Peter Bredlau (Hospitality Chair), Mark Russo (Finance Chair) and Becky Roemen (Global Staff Liaison), Patricia Pabon (Admin).
Atlantic City, NJ was chosen as the first location with the mindset that it was centrally located, was easily accessible and had venues large enough to host the event.
The Committee established two benchmarks for success:
1. Every Chapter had to have at least one member in attendance
2. The venue and leadership team for the 2nd year had to be announced onsite.
Both criteria were met. At the closing session, Peter Bredlau and Ralph Deandria were named as the Event Chairs for year two, which was to be held in Washington, DC.
As for where the name came from, originally it was a loose acronym for North East Regional eVEnt. The event quickly outgrew the geographic scope of the acronym, but, the definition originally assigned to it still rang very true, so the name stuck.