Leadership Award an Honor and Challenge

I had a wonderful honor last week to accept the Leader of the Year Award from Leadership Clark County. It was wonderful and humbling, especially with Jimmy Sheehan also honored as the Distinguished Community Leader and Mark Stephenson as Alumnus of the Year. I look at the award not as having achieved a pinnacle in leadership but as a challenge to continue to develop leadership skills that can benefit Greater Springfield. The award as I see it isn’t that Mike McDorman is a leader worthy of any honor, but that the Chamber has a critical leadership role in this community and that’s what is being recognized. I see my role and the Chamber’s role as being stewards of this time in the community’s history. Our challenge is to make things better for those who come after us. Isn’t that what leadership is all about? I was fortunate to be in the Leadership Clark County Class of 2001. Leadership Clark County opened my eyes to a community that I had lived in my whole life, but had never seen before. It was the key to uncovering many of the opportunities that would build in me the tools for success in what I do today. I got to see firsthand how the strengths of different people coming together around a common cause can help move an organization forward in extraordinary ways. I liked the experience so much, in fact, that I decided to leave Ohio Edison in 2006 to become a part of the Chamber of Commerce. I hope and pray we at the Chamber can use our leadership position to move this community forward. Have a great Chamber day! (Don’t forget to vote for refurbishing the Lagonda Club building at www.refresheverything.com/lagondachallenge.)

Vote for the Lagonda Building

A stone’s throw from the current Chamber of Commerce offices at Commerce Pointe sits a once grand edifice, now abandoned. It is the Lagonda Building (at the corner of Spring and High Streets) perhaps better known to some as the Chamber of Commerce Building. Built in 1894 and home to the Chamber from 1923 until 1963, it retains a certain stateliness despite its age and abandonment. If a practical use and funds were found to bring it back to life, it would once again be a crown jewel in the downtown. It can happen with your help. Art Wilson and his wife own the building. They bought it in 1988. They have entered the project in an online voting contest conducted each month by Pepsi at www.refresheverything.com. Voting takes place all this month. When you log on, you will see on the left hand side four rectangles with dollar amounts of $5,000, $25,000, $50,000 and $250,000. The Wilsons have applied for a $250,000 grant, the most difficult to achieve, obviously. You can vote by going to www.refresheverything.com/lagondachallenge. The Wilsons want to turn the building into a youth and events-oriented community club. I’ll go so far as to say our youth, particularly our teens, have been neglected in this regard. Here’s an opportunity to rehab a building and make it accessible to today’s teens and others. Sounds like a worthy project to me. Now go vote and use all your social media avenues to get the word out to others. Have a great Chamber day!

Chamber Annual Meeting Sets the Stage for 2010

I have been to the annual meetings of companies in the past. Well, let’s be honest … for the most part, they’re boring, very boring. That’s why at the Chamber we try to change that by creating a festive atmosphere, one in which people leave and actually feel it was time well spent. We held our annual meeting last Thursday at the Performing Arts Center. We had more than 500 people in attendance. A lot of credit goes to Chris Schutte of the Chamber staff for the event planning. The business expo was such a success we sold out and had to turn companies away. For us, the annual meeting is a great way to review the strides made in the past year because we often tend to forget all that has taken place. It also gives us the opportunity to provide direction for the coming year, reminding the community where we’re headed and how we plan to get there. The evening was based on the theme “Miracles” and centered around the movie about the U.S. 1980 gold medal winning hockey team. Why? Because what is taking place in Springfield today may seem like a miracle. Is there another community in the state making the strides we are? What made it an even greater evening was it came on the eve of Code Blue’s formal announcement that it had finalized plans to locate an office downtown that would employ 150 by the end of 2011 and 300 within five years. A miracle? More on the annual meeting and Code Blue in future conversations. Meanwhile, see photos of both events at www.flickr.com/photos/greaterspringfield.
Have a great Chamber day!

3-C Stop a Potential Win for Community

Back in the early to mid 1800s, a city’s growth and prosperity was determined by where the railroad decided to lay tracks. Springfield is an example of that and so is Yellow Springs. A legislator from Yellow Springs influenced the railroad to come through that fair city instead of the planned Clifton. Yellow Springs grew and Clifton didn’t. Same thing happened in Springfield and it may be about to happen again. Word in late January that Springfield is being strongly considered a stop on the 256-mile 3-C passenger train from Cincinnati to Columbus and Cleveland was good news for our community. Work on a passenger station near East Washington and Spring Street should begin this year. Property for a station has been purchased by the Port Authority of Springfield. This would spur other development downtown as trains are scheduled to pass through four times each way per day. What convinces me there’s a future in rail is Warren Buffet, who is one of the smartest men I know, invested heavily in Midwest passenger rail. He doesn’t make many investment mistakes. Have a great Chamber day.

Have you read your copy of the SpringfieldB2B magazine with the Chamber’s RegionView inserted? It’s a product of Cox Ohio Publishing and produced out of the Springfield News-Sun offices. What’s exciting is instead of RegionView being published only three or four times per year, it will now be coming out every other month. Future editions are scheduled for April, June, August, October and December. The Springfield B2B and RegionView are great additions to the local media lineup. It’s always been a marvel to me how cities in Ohio and other states much smaller than Springfield have their own television stations covering local news in addition to the print media. A business magazine helps fill a void. The Springfield B2B pages will be focused on a particular theme. The Chamber’s eight-page RegionView will contain a variety of stories that cover local businesses, Chamber activities and articles related to the Convention and Visitors Bureau. In addition to the RegionView being inserted in the SpringfieldB2B, there will be stand-along copies of the Chamber publication strategically placed around the county. We think you’ll enjoy it. Have a great Chamber day!

Chamber Annual Meeting & Business Expo

I hope you have registered to attend the Chamber’s annual meeting on Thursday, Feb. 25 at the Clark State Performing Arts Center. It’s not too late if you haven’t. We have changed things around this year. The Performing Arts Center is a new venue. We have added a Business Expo in which local companies will have booths to promote their product or service. Sorry, all space is sold. You can visit those booths from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. You’ll even have a chance to win a television. Our speaker will be Edward (Ned) Hill, Dean of the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. We’ll also present the Richard L. Kuss Lifetime Achievement Award to Charles Brougher, long-time CEO and chairman of Eagle Tool. We’ve also added awards for Small Business of the Year (nominees are Springboard Group, Gillam’s Landscaping, Cerium Group, Littleton & Rue Funeral Home), Minority Business of the Year (nominees First Diversity Staffing, Springfield Flight Academy), Business of the Year (nominees Speedway, Woeber Mustard, Assurant Group). We’ll review past accomplishments and look ahead to what’s next on the agenda. You won’t want to miss it. Call the Chamber at 325-7621 for tickets or go to http://chamber.greaterspringfield.com. Have a great Chamber day!

Holiday in the City a Success

Consider this a “shout out” to Maureen Fagans, Center City Association Executive Director, the City of Springfield, the event sponsors and the team of volunteers who helped make the largest annual event in the downtown a success. The fireworks were fantastic, the lights spectacular, the arrival of Santa a highlight even for me and Christmas Village in the old Meeks store again drew a crowd. This goes to show what we can do as a community when volunteers pitch in, donors are generous and the townspeople appreciative. All this despite the economy. Another large crowd estimated at 14,000 all but assured this event will continue to be a Christmas Season highlight for Springfield and the entire region. As the downtown park is completed next year and retail, restaurants and entertainment venues are added downtown, Springfield and Holiday in the City will only get bigger and better. Like Santa said upon his arrival: “It’s great to be in Springfield.” Have a great Chamber day!