Last week I received an e-mail message from Paul Hutchinson, a managing member of Bridge Loan Capital Fund, inviting me to a networking dinner with other CEOs and company founders from around my area. Paul found me because of an award Doba recently received from the Utah Valley Entrepreneurial Forum (UVEF), and he wrote to encourage me to attend the dinner because of the possibility of being invited to participate in what he called an ‘exclusive executive retreat’ in the spring of 2007 with other world-class CEOs.

My idea of an executive retreat is a little different than most CEOs. As I wrote back on the 5th of June, when Doba takes its Management Team out for retreats, nary a word about work is spoken and not one spreadsheet is unveiled, nor is anyone asked to present their ideas for saving or making the company money. Our retreats are way more relaxed than that and serve an entirely different purpose, and so too it seems are the retreats Hutchinson and his colleagues put together. Last year they climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and next year they’re thinking about renting a 233-foot ship for a sailing excursion to some pretty remote areas.

The networking dinner is tonight, so I’m definitely going to check it out for myself.