By Nate Delesline III
nate.delesline@insidebiz.com
Relationship building and hard data will shape how the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce conducts business in 2016, leaders said at the organization’s annual meeting.
Looking back at 2015, Mike Kuhns, the Peninsula chamber’s president and CEO, said he was particularly proud of two other accomplishments this year.
“Raising our level of involvement and the relationships with the military and the local commanders and the formation of the Fort Eustis Civic Leaders Association, that was a big thing, and the second thing was us moving ahead and creating a relationship with Christopher Newport University’s department of economics to conduct a six-year ongoing study of the needs of the small business population on the Peninsula,” Kuhns said.
In 2015, the chamber held more than 100 chamber events that attracted more than 10,000 people.
“This past year has been one of great progress for the Virginia Peninsula,” said Rob Shuford Jr., chairman of the chamber’s board of directors. “Development and infrastructure projects are once again moving forward, and business, community and government leaders are beginning to forge a new vision for the future of the Peninsula. Your chamber continues to have extensive involvement in these and many other efforts to bring collaborative links across the Peninsula and throughout Hampton Roads.”
Over the next year, Shuford said Newport News and Hampton public schools have both committed to supporting and promoting the chamber’s Young Entrepreneurs Academy and the Youth Leadership Alliance initiatives.
Held at the Newport News Marriott at City Center, the , and also to present the chamber’s Distinguished Citizen Award to Molly Ward, Virginia’s secretary of natural resources. Ward received a standing ovation upon stepping forward to receive the award.
“When you look at that list of honorees that’s in the [program], it’s an amazing group of people, many of whom I have known very, very well and personally,” she said. The list includes her father, Edwin Joseph, who received the award in 1992.
“My father and my mother both very much raised us to believe in community and participate in the community,” she said. “They were always running off to a board meeting or having a charitable event.”
Ward, a native of Hampton who also served two terms as the city’s mayor, said the state’s natural resources stewards are focusing on Chesapeake Bay, land conservation and advocacy issues.