Linda F. Higgison, 60; Ran Event Management Firm

Linda F. Higgison, who for nearly 30 years owned and operated one of the largest event management and marketing companies in Washington, died of cancer at her home in Bethesda on Feb. 2, the day after her 60th birthday.

Mrs. Higgison, owner of the TCI Cos., was in the forefront of the global multibillion-dollar destination management industry. She started her career offering tours of monuments and memorials in Washington and eventually built a nationwide company providing event planning, transportation, marketing services and seminars.

Her company managed 50,000 events for more than 5,000 clients. The events included the National Spelling Bee, the second inauguration of President Bush, the 2003 World Figure Skating Championships in Washington and hundreds of corporate, association and other events throughout the world.

"She was always finding new markets that hadn't been tapped," said a son, Grant Higgison.

For example, she branched out into sporting events. In 1996, she chronicled the impact of the Carolina Panthers football team on its community in a coffee-table book, "Carolina Panthers Sunday." Her company organized the 70th anniversary celebration for the Washington Redskins, and she supported efforts to bring the Olympics to Washington.

"Whereas most people in the field of event management were concerned with logistics and economic impact, she was concerned with exploring the true nature of eventology -- the science of human events," said Joe Goldblatt, a professor of tourism and hospitality management at Temple University.

She and Goldblatt used their theory of eventology to design the curriculum for an event leadership certificate program at Temple. She also lectured on the theory at Cambridge University in England and at South African and Australian universities.

An eighth-generation Washington native, Linda Fischer Higgison was the daughter and granddaughter of physicians. She graduated from Walt Whitman High School and Randolph-Macon College in Lynchburg, Va.

After college, she began working for the Gray Line tour company at the Capital Hilton and later became a manager. In 1977, with a $50 investment, she founded a firm, the Capital Informer, offering tours of Washington's most famous sites. As her business grew, Mrs. Higgison designed and created one of the first technology systems to manage tours and other destination management practices. She eventually renamed her firm the TCI Cos.

Mrs. Higgison was a 1996 finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. She served on many boards and helped found the first network of destination management companies.

In 1998, she taught in George Washington University's event management program and traveled to the Philippines and other countries to share her expertise with students.

Mrs. Higgison viewed meetings as places where people with different views can find common ground and, as she said in a 2002 interview on MeetingsNet.com, where people can have "goose-bump experiences."

"People want to be part of something bigger than themselves," she said. "If you can tap into that current, you can create a transformational event."

She was a member of St. John's Episcopal Church at Lafayette Square, where she enjoyed helping with flower arrangements. She also donated her time to the Landon School for its annual azalea festival.

After her husband of 27 years, Edward Cole Higgison Sr., died in 2003, she wrote articles for hospice groups and lobbied the Maryland legislature for funding for hospices.

In addition to her son, of Harrisonburg, Va., survivors include two other children, Cole Higgison Jr. of Bethesda and Elizabeth Hunter Higgison of Washington; her mother, Frances Hunter Fischer of Lusby; a sister, Anne Lee Phillips of Annapolis; and a brother, Richard Henry Fischer Jr. of Solomons Island.