CAM and CCI Merger Create AOE; Name Kayler President
Two leading organizations with decades of experience serving associations and companies in technical industries have merged to form AOE – a full-service consulting firm.
AOE (Advancing Organizational Excellence) is the merger of Creative Association Management (CAM) of Farmington Hills, Mich. and Constructive Communication, Inc. of Dublin, Ohio.
CAM has provided full-service association management expertise ranging from publications, electronic media and website development, certification, outsourced HR and financial services, strategic planning, event/meeting planning and execution, as well as strategic and operational planning since 1990. Clients include the Post-Tensioning Institute, the American Coal Ash Association, the American Shotcrete Association, the Slag Cement Association and the Building Owners and Managers Association of Detroit.
Founded in 2001, Constructive Communication, Inc. is the recognized leader in marketing strategy, public relations, social media, graphic design and communications tactics for the AEC and other industrial sectors. The firm is known for expertise in crisis communications, article and white paper development as well as strategic planning. Representative clients include the International Grinding and Grooving Association, LORD Corporation, Stream + Wetlands Foundation, the Concrete Industry Management program, Rieck Services, O’Neal Inc., CTS Cement, D.S. Brown and more.
“The merger of these two entities provides the industry with a one-stop resource for everything from strategic planning to operations, marketing and management,” said William E. Rushing Jr., PE, FACI, CAM Chairman of the Board, Manager of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Waldemar S. Nelson & Co., Inc.
Kimberly Kayler, President and Founder of CCI, has been named as president of AOE. A marketing professional with extensive experience serving technical industries, Kayler served in business development and marketing communications roles at engineering firms as well as an editor at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base before she started CCI to serve the needs of professional service and business-to-business technical firms. In her role as President of CCI, she has helped clients define strategy and develop marketing action plans. CCI’s client list includes more than two dozen design and construction-related organizations and associations, as well as companies in chemical, aerospace and industrial sectors.
A past member of the Board of Direction for the American Concrete Institute (ACI), Kayler chaired the ACI Marketing Committee and is a past member of the Construction Liaison, Membership, Convention, Financial Advisory and Chapter Activities Committees. Past Task Group membership includes the International Conferences, 2030, Strategic Planning, Branding, convention Opening Session, as well as the Communications Platforms for Delivery of Services and Products. She also is the past chair of the Global Marketing and Research Task Group.
Kayler is Co-Founder of the Women in Concrete Alliance (WICA) and leads efforts to create networking programs for women in the concrete industry. In this capacity, she represented WICA on the U.S. Secretary of Transportation’s Women in Transportation Roundtable.
She has authored more than 2,000 articles and is the co-author of Leading with Marketing, a handbook for marketing and business development professionals. She has given presentations at the World of Concrete and for many industry organizations and associations during the last 20 years related to marketing, leadership and branding. In 1999, she was the first person in Ohio and one of the first 20 in the nation to earn the Certified Professional Services Marketer designation from the Society for Marketing Professional Services and she still holds this designation.
Since 2009, Kayler has served as an Adjunct Professor in the Integrated Marketing Communications Department at Columbus State Community College, Columbus, Ohio. She received her B.A. in Journalism from The University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz., and her M.S. in organization and management with an emphasis in leadership from Capella University.
AOE will operate out of CAM’s existing headquarters in Farmington Hills, Mich. CCI team members joining AOE are Amy Numbers, Kari Moosmann, Ashley Kizzire, Kristin Dispenza and Lindsay Chelf. For more information, visit www.theaoeteam.com.
AOE is a full-service consulting firm with unique expertise serving professional service and technical industries. It was founded in 2018 through the merger of CAM – an association management firm with experience in publications, electronic media/website development, certification, HR and financial services, strategic planning, event/meeting planning and execution, as well as strategic and operational planning – as well as Constructive Communication, Inc. – a specialty PR firm offering marketing communications, crisis communications, public relations and social media expertise. The AOE team is comprised of more than 100 professionals. For more information, visit www.theaoeteam.com.
