Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 8

143 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 8 and we have a 36,000 square-foot ballroom on another level and then lots of open space where people can congregate and just hang out. Then there’s the outdoor terrace, complete with a green roof and herb garden. We are so very lucky. Many convention centers don’t have the luxury of having outdoor spaces, and we do. It’s very nice that they can catch a little flavor of the city by sitting under a tree.” BCC has 150 full-time staff plus hundreds more on a contract-basis, depending on the event. The Center prides itself on maintaining a long- term staff that is highly trained and dedicated to providing top quality service to every event that comes through. “We have an obligation to showcase our city in a very friendly, professional, courteous way,” Daidakis says. “We get a lot of compliments about the team and our staff and their courtesy. I think that’s our strength – that our people want to be engaged with visitors in a BALT IMORE CONVENT ION CENTER positive way and leave a good impression.” Before COVID-19 hit in 2020, BCC was holding up to 150 events per year. The pandemic brought that to a screeching halt, but that didn’t mean the center and its staff just sat idly by. When the world shut down, they became a 250- bed COVID field hospital facility. The governor of Maryland declared a state of emergency and established temporary hospital facilities throughout the state in case there was overflow needed from community hospitals. Daidakis recalls, “The National Guard came in and erected cubicles with cots and we literally became a hospital. The University of Maryland Medical System, as well as Johns Hopkins, collaborated on providing the medical leadership to take care of patients that were transitioning from their stay in emergency or more high level care in the hospital to make