By Lydia Wheeler
The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce has found its voice in Bryan Stephens.
It's been nine months since the former U.S. Army officer turned business executive became president and CEO of the nonprofit, which has long been reluctant to take a stance on local issues. But with Stephens running the show as a hands-on president and CEO, the chamber is finally speaking up.
At its meeting on Sept. 3, the board voted to support the construction of the proposed arena in Virginia Beach. Arena events, members said, will create new tax and business revenues for hotels, restaurants and area businesses. Since the Beach plans to schedule most arena events from September to April, the chamber said the venue will provide a year-round boost in business.
Though not every member may agree, Stephens said the majority rules. And as the board becomes more vocal, Stephens asked members to hang tight. The next topic, he says, is likely to be something they'll agree on.
Under Stephens, the chamber has drafted a new mission: The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce is the region's premier business organization, helping members succeed, driving regional economic growth and enhancing the quality of life for the community's residents. And a new vision: The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce will be the recognized national leader in ensuring a regional pro-business environment, strengthening a regional economy and enhancing its members' success, growth and vitality.
The chamber would not release exact membership numbers, but spokeswoman Lisa Jones said membership is trending up.
"We're in the range of 1,700 member businesses representing 250,000 employees," she said.
Stephens talked about the chamber's new culture, running the organization like a business and challenges facing the business community.
What's changed since you took over?
The chamber is a great organization, has been a great organization and will continue to be a great organization. As far as what has changed around here, it might be a new focus, a new culture internal to the staff that may not have been there. I think it's an evolution from where it was rather than a revolution. I think I and the entire staff have more of a mindset that the chamber is a business and we have customers and our customers are first and foremost the members of the chamber and secondly, the greater business community of Hampton Roads. We basically work for them as opposed to being a not-for-profit organization that provides services. We have more of a business mentality. We have a job to do and that job is to support the business community in Hampton Roads and we do it in various ways.
Running this organization as a business means we operate more like a business. We have more business discipline, more business acumen, more business accountability. We've put in place processes, procedures and systems that give us more accountability so we can better serve our customers.
What is the chamber's business plan?
Shortly after coming here I conducted an off-site [meeting], which using a military term, was a mission analysis, and tried to identify what our role and our mission would be years down the road. That's when we decided we needed to have more accountability, more discipline and run ourselves like a business, etc. We do have a business plan, which is continually evolving. It consists of specific goals and objectives that are mostly tangible when you talk about finances, when you talk about membership, when you talk about membership retention, when you talk about return on investment. We have definite goals and objectives relative to that and then we have physical goals and objectives, things that are more strategic in nature like enhancing the business environment in Hampton Roads. And how does one go about doing that?
In my mind, we as a chamber now are viewing Hampton Roads as a system if you will. I think the chamber needs to be one of the system's integrators in Hampton Roads. What are all the components of that system? You have your educational system, you have your business community, you have your workforce development community, you have your infrastructure, transportation, gas, electric, your different municipalities. Those are all systems that are part of the bigger system of Hampton Roads. In order for us to be as prosperous as we can possibly be, we have to work together.
Who is the agency pulling those all together and acting as the systems integrator? My thought is that one of those organizations needs to be the chamber of commerce. So we're starting to take a leadership role in facilitating the three Cs - communication, coordination and collaboration.
How is the chamber taking on this leadership role?
We're working with the workforce development agencies throughout Hampton Roads to provide the business community with a talented workforce. A subsystem of that is our military community. We have over 10,000 men and women getting out of the military in Hampton Roads. We have numerous well- meaning, purposeful organizations that are trying to help these men and women find jobs, find education, get certification, etc. and keep them here in Hampton Roads and that is great.
But is there an organization that is facilitating collaboration among all those disparate organizations? Well, the chamber is starting to do that now. We're starting to bring all these organizations together around one table and say, "OK, how do we work together as a community to support these men and women in uniform."
We're doing the same thing with transportation.
We've formed, along with my friend over on the Peninsula, Matthew James, an organization called Mobility Matters. It's a grassroots organization to help facilitate mobility from outside of Hampton Roads, bringing goods and people inside Hampton Roads and help with mobility in Hampton Roads.
Did the Regional Organization Study funded by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation suggest the chamber take on this leadership role?
Yeah, I think maybe it was ancillary to the specific recommendations in the study. The study mostly identified the challenges we have. It looked at other regions and asked, "What do these other regions have that facilitate a good prosperous economy and what's missing here in Hampton Roads?" And one of the things that was missing was the collaborative nature of the various systems I was talking about. It wasn't as specific as a recommendation, but it certainly did indicate that we needed more cooperation and collaboration here in Hampton Roads. We need to view ourselves as a region if we're going to compete on the national and international level for economic prosperity.
What are some of the challenges of the business community?
We had some pretty good years a few years ago... and then we had what some would call a recession and that presented some challenges especially when you look at our three economic drivers in Hampton Roads - the port, tourism and the military. All three took a pretty significant hit.
From what I can tell, the port is starting to pull out of that economic downturn. I think a big challenge when you look at the economy of Hampton Roads is the defense industry right now. I don't think it's any secret that Hampton Roads sustained a disproportionate impact from sequestration. Someone told me recently we have 20,000 to 25,000 less military in Hampton Roads now than we did a few years ago. Well 25,000 less people, and that doesn't include their families, has a huge economic impact. All that has an impact on a region that has relied in the past 46 percent on the defense industry.
That, unlike the port and tourism, we're not going to pull out of, at least in the short term. It's something we're going to have to deal with. The role of the chamber is to try to mitigate that impact while at the same time try to facilitate the diversification of our economy. In other words, try to bring other industries in from an economic development standpoint.
How is the chamber doing that?
We're working closely with the economic development departments across the region. We have the Economic Development Alliance, but specifically I like to tell people that the role of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce is to set the conditions so that businesses can succeed in Hampton Roads.
We have the best Small Business Development Center in the commonwealth of Virginia right here in this chamber. We also have a sports commission that brings major sporting events to Hampton Roads. They are constantly putting in proposals for nationwide events. One is the 2015 AAU Junior Olympic Games next summer. Ten-thousand athletes are coming into Hampton Roads. They are young athletes so the vast majority of them are bringing family members with them. We estimate a $50 million economic boost because of all the hotels, restaurants and souvenir-buying and going to other attractions.
We have a leadership development program. There are over 1,200 graduates of that program already. That's 1,200 members of the community who understand servant leadership and giving back to the community.
Amanda MacDiarmid | Stellar Exposures LLC