CHANTILLY, VA — Humorist Dave Barry and financial expert Lou Dobbs will be the featured speakers at the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association’s (SMACNA’s) 58th annual convention, to be held Oct. 21-25 at the Boca Raton Hotel and Resort in Boca Raton, FL.

The opening session will feature syndicated columnist and author Dave Barry, whose speeches are rarely the same and always entertaining, the association said. A columnist for the Miami Herald, his observations appear in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. In 1988, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

Getting back to business, the Monday luncheon will feature Lou Dobbs, host of the NBC radio program The Lou Dobbs/NBC Financial Report, a series of daily short-form financial news reports. He also publishes a newsletter that examines the market and analyzes trends. Dobbs served as president of CNNfn and as vice president of CNN. He founded CNNfn and CNNfn.com, the first programming services to launch simultaneously on TV and the Internet.