The Channel Company MES Conference Gets 'Trumped' By Presidential Hopeful

Gartner analyst Mike Cisek takes a selfie with presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Technology executives at The Channel Company's Midsize Enterprise Summit East had a celebrity sighting of presidential proportions when Donald Trump mingled briefly with attendees at the conference hotel in Indianapolis this week, where he is hunting for votes in Tuesday's Republican presidential primary.

Trump Monday was walking through an area of the JW Marriott Indianapolis hotel where conference attendees were holding meetings when a group flagged him down to take a few photos.

"We started seeing the Secret Service over at the elevators," said Esther Rodriguez, an account executive with The Channel Company, which publishes CRN. Rodriguez said she then called out to Trump, "’Hey! Can we take a picture?' And he said ’Sure.' So he stopped."

[Related: Big Data's Big Role In Big Politics]

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One resulting photo showing Trump posing with Gartner analyst Mike Cisek, a presenter at the conference, was displayed for attendees Tuesday morning prior to the day's general session.

Cisek said he sought the photo because he is a "huge Trump fan."

Should Trump be elected, Cisek would like to see him lower corporate taxes and ease the burden of federal regulations on business, as well as change immigration policy – a cornerstone of Trump's candidacy – to tilt the balance more toward American workers, especially for those in technology. "A lot of [current immigration policy focuses on] driving the uptick in H-1B visas and I hope that stops," Cisek told CRN.

Tuesday's Republican primary in the Hoosier State – seen as pivotal to Trump's efforts to secure the GOP nomination at the July convention – served as a backdrop to MES. And the presence of Trump and his security detail was a topic of conversation among some of the roughly 500 attendees.

Robert DeMarzo, senior vice president of event content and strategy at The Channel Company, said he reached out several times to Trump and his campaign manager through Twitter after learning of the encounter in an effort to get the businessman to stop by the conference, but had not received a reply as of late Tuesday morning.

DeMarzo said some of the feedback he received from attendees about Trump's presence at the hotel is that they would like to understand his position around technology issues given major concerns such as Internet bandwidth regulation and cybersecurity.