City. Dearborn was selected at the suggestion of one of our members who was very helpful in the initial stages of planning. Despite the fact that the Motor City area was extremely hard hit by the economic recession, it turned out to be a good reunion choice.

Reunion Hotel. The Hyatt Regency Dearborn Hotel is in the Fairlane Town Center ½ mile from Interstate 94. The hotel had plenty of free parking. There is a mall just a short walk across a parking lot with the usual range of shops and restaurants. The hotel was very accommodating in every aspect. The check-in and out went well with very few hiccups. The space provided for our CPs, meeting and banquet was very good. Much of the credit for the success of the reunion is due to the hotel and its staff.

Hotel Contacts. The hotel had an excellent staff. Our sales manager was Joy Day. She was extremely helpful before our arrival and continued to be so throughout the reunion. Our convention services manger was Kelly Steiger. She was very visible, accessible and professional, handling all our requests quickly, completely and without incident. The banquet department went above and beyond as well. Arif Hashmi, the General Manager and the entire staff at this hotel was a pleasure to work with from start to finish. Nothing we asked was too much.

Hotel Rooms/Prices. We booked a total of 1463 room nights at the Hyatt. Our room rate was $104 per night. State and local taxes added another 14%.

Hotel Food and Beverage. The hotel food at our various functions was exceptionally good. The cost per dinner at the banquet was $38.00 for a turkey, beef or salmon dinner. A kid’s meal was $18.00. The cost at our conflict breakfasts was $18.00. The Hyatt offered our attendees wearing their name badges a 15% discount at their restaurants. They also offered a $10.00 breakfast buffet and an $11.00 lunch buffet at their restaurant. Our Food and Beverage minimum was $26,200.00, which we easily exceeded.

Attendance. Our total number of registered attendees was just over 800. We were again greatly and pleasantly surprised by the attendance of “First Timers” which exceeded 290. Our active 1st Infantry Division permitted some 200 leaders and soldiers to attend the reunion.

Our reunion schedule. Our normal reunion schedule runs from Wednesday to Sunday:

1. During the week, we ran tours when there were no reunion activities taking place.

2. Our sales operation (Supply Sarge) was open at convenient hours during the reunion for the purchase of Society merchandise.

3. Our Museum, The First Division Museum at Cantigny, was well-represented. Books and other historical materials were available for sale, interviews were conducted, videos were shown, photos and artifacts were displayed and questions answered.

4. On Thursday morning, we held a Golf Tournament. That evening we also hosted our annual Welcome Party. The theme was Motown Tribute Night. We hired a DJ who played lots of Motown music and held a dance contest which was enormously popular.

5. On Friday, we held our conflict breakfasts (VN, and WW II/DS/Cold War/Iraq). Afterward our Regimental Associations held their Unit Meetings. We held our Board of Directors meeting in the late afternoon.

6. On Saturday morning we had our Memorial Service and our Annual Business Meeting. Saturday evening was the annual banquet where we served 850 dinners. We presented several awards and recognized a number of members. We also drew the winners of our very popular raffle. The Division CG was the principal banquet speaker.

Tours. We offered tours to such places as the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the Greektown Casino, the Ford Rouge truck factory, a Tigers baseball game at Comerica Park, a river cruise and a trip to the race track.

Hospitality Rooms (CPs). Our traditional system for operating hospitality rooms, which we call CPs, is that most of our line regiments’ associations or similar groups run their own hospitality rooms in hotel function space arranged for them by the Society and without cost to them. The concept is that everyone has a ‘home' below the large, amorphous level of ‘division’, thereby increasing the possibility of closer association with soldiers of their own unit. Normally, the units provide all their own liquor and refreshments in these CPs. In this case, in order to comply with local and state liquor laws, the hotel sold us all alcoholic beverages at a very reasonable price above their cost. They had a roving bartender system to replenish ice and reorder as necessary. It was a very satisfactory arrangement to all concerned. The hotel billed the Society each day and we collected from the units running the CPs.

Miscellaneous.

1. Active Division Support. Our active division once again provided tremendous support for this reunion. The Division CG was with us. The Division Command Sergeant Major also attended. The Division provided a color guard for our ceremonies and a display with PAO reps. The Division Chorus also sang at our banquet. Due to a liberal attendance policy, over 200 leaders and soldiers from subordinate units at Ft. Riley were also able to attend. The soldiers were billeted at a local college and bussed to the reunion hotel daily. The Division CG gave us a very informative presentation at the Annual Meeting on the many unit changes taking place within the Division. As is our custom, we honored the NCO of the Year and Soldier of the Year at our banquet.

2. Most of our units have regimental associations whose constitution requires an annual meeting. The Society reunion affords most of them the perfect opportunity for this meeting so we book meeting space for this purpose during our hotel negotiations.

3. Again, this year we did not use a professional photographer. Our museum or members or the 1st Inf Div PAO folks are able to take enough photos for Society purposes such as our newspaper.

Summary. Overall, the Dearborn Hyatt and the Motor City area proved to be a surprisingly excellent reunion site. All aspects of our reunion went very well and the vast majority of our attendees reported having a great time. The hotel was a large part of the success.

See pictures from past reunions