The Minnesota Charter Bus Operators Association will open its annual meeting with a keynote speaker for the first time as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Author and podcast host Eric Brooker will open the 2026 MCBOA Annual Meeting, set for Nov. 9-11 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Minneapolis-Park Place.
Brooker will present “Relationship Capital: The Value of Meaningful Connections” on Nov. 10. His keynote will explore how relationships shape leadership, workplace culture, employee engagement, customer service and long-term business success.
“This isn’t just a feel-good pep talk,” MCBOA Executive Director Vicki Bowman says. “We want our attendees to take a closer look at the relationships that matter to their businesses, where they may need to invest more time or attention, and what they can do differently when they return home.”
She says the goal is to inspire attendees to take action.
“If someone walks out of that room thinking, ‘I need to make a change,’ then we’ve accomplished something,” Bowman says.
Power of connections
Brooker has nearly 25 years of leadership experience. In 2020, he launched “Counsel Culture,” a podcast focused on leadership, workplace culture and the experiences of influential people in business, sports and other fields.
Over more than 160 episodes, Brooker has interviewed Fortune 500 executives, professional athletes, best-selling authors and leadership experts. His guests have included executive leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith, management expert Ken Blanchard, Paralympic silver medalist John Register, and Patrick Lencioni, author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”
Those conversations, combined with Brooker’s leadership experience, helped shape his work around relationship capital. The concept focuses on how intentional connections can strengthen a company’s culture, leadership, workforce and customer relationships.
Brooker is working on his second book, which will focus on relationship capital. He describes his first book, “You Are Enough: Overcoming Lifelong Doubts of Worthiness,” as “a testament to the power of personal transformation” that equips the reader with tangible tools for change.
“Eric has spent years sitting across from extraordinary leaders and asking questions about how they lead, how they build culture and how they navigate change,” Bowman says. “Now our attendees get the opportunity to learn from the perspective he has developed through those conversations and his own leadership experience.”
Sharing practical ideas
The keynote also reflects MCBOA’s goal of giving attendees practical information they can apply to their operations.
The meeting will include sessions on safety and compliance, maintenance and repair, and business strategy. Topics will include risk management, safety culture, fleet technology, workforce challenges, profitability and industry trends.
“We don’t want people to simply attend sessions and collect information,” Bowman says. “We want them to go home with ideas they can use, conversations they need to continue and something they want to do differently.”
The keynote’s focus on building connections is especially fitting as MCBOA celebrates four decades of bringing together motorcoach operators and industry partners across Minnesota and the Upper Midwest.
“For 40 years, relationships have been at the heart of MCBOA,” Bowman says. “There couldn’t be a more appropriate way to begin this anniversary meeting than by talking about the value of the connections we build and then looking together at what comes next.”
The annual meeting is open to MCBOA members and nonmembers. Programming is designed for company owners and leaders as well as professionals working in operations, safety, compliance and maintenance.
For more information or to register, visit the MCBOA website.
