Chamber urges unity to cope with Carrier loss
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Larry Flatt, current Chamber board chairman and a Carrier employee, said what turned out to be fortuitous changes in the Chamber’s infrastructure, made at its annual meeting, will go a long way toward facilitating the Chamber’s efforts in this regard.
But more than anything, Flatt said the Chamber wanted to let local businesses know the Chamber is solidly behind them and will utilize every resource available over the next 18 months to offer aid and support.
“We felt it is important that the whole community understand,” Flatt said, “that there are more than 400 businesses in Warren County that are members of the Chamber, and that collectively, and unified together, our position is to rally around those affected by the closing of one of our major industries and the ancillary industries that support it.”
Chamber vice chairman Steve Otto clarified the function of the Chamber, differentiating it from its affiliated organization, the Industrial Development Board.
“There’s a perception that’s existed in the past that the Chamber is responsible for recruiting industry,” Otto said. “And that’s not true. Our function, our mission, is to do what we can to make the community attractive and a good place for that recruitment to occur. That’s what our job is.”
Flatt talked about out the kind of strategic support the Chamber can bring to bear when its members work together, in part because those members represent a wide range of business models.
“A majority of the Chamber members are no doubt small businesses,” Flatt said. “On the other hand, we do have multi-million dollar corporations such as Carrier, which has been a faithful member of the Chamber since it came to the community. And then we have the financial institutions, which have a lot of monetary assets just from the nature of the business, that are members of the Chamber. So we are a melting pot of small, mid-sized and large organizations.”
“As Steve just said, our role is not developing or recruiting new industry,” Flatt continued. “Our role is to make sure when that industry is brought here, that the picture they see is one of a healthy, thriving place where existing industry does well, where they can get employees that are trained, and where they can go and get the services they need to support their products or services they may be providing in the community.”
Flatt said the Chamber has been fortunate in that it actually began looking ahead, even before the Carrier announcement, and taking into account other viable avenues of employment, such as the tourism industry, as well as an old standby, the nursery industry.
Though both Flatt and Otto agree the Carrier closure represents a very real economic crisis, they feel the business community can pull together, along with the Chamber, and utilize the considerable resources of Warren County to recover – even from an economic blow of this magnitude.
“There’s no doubt we’re in the hole,” Flatt said. “But we haven’t fallen into the abyss.”