By Ernie Colburn
– SACC President & CEO
It’s often been said “the Chamber sees everything through rose-colored glasses”. News Flash: Not this guy ! When I took over the reins of this position two years ago, I immediately trashed the rose-colored glasses with the spirit of viewing everything with simple clarity-as it is.
One thing I’ve been blessed with are very knowledgeable and talented individuals from the business community. Let the record show my respect and appreciation for the work our out-going Chamber President, Dr. Memo Diriker, leader of the BEACON Group at Salisbury University, has done this past year. A lot of what Dr. Diriker did for the Chamber will probably never be known by the average person or business because his work was conducted behind the scenes with internal Chamber restructure laying the groundwork for our future.
Our incoming Chairman of the Board, Tony Nichols, Area Manager with BBSI here in Salisbury comes fully charged and ready to take on the task of leadership this year having come up through the ranks of the Chamber executive committee and well groomed with experience and knowledge of the Chamber and the community.
A lot of changes facing us internally(within the County) and externally(within the State) in 2015…..new Governor in the State of Maryland; a new Senator and 5 new Delegates representing the Eastern Shore; a new Wicomico County Executive; new faces on County Council; a highly charged City of Salisbury Council.
Our challenge that’s ahead of us, from the Chamber’s prospective, is to understand and align our City and County to sustain and diversity our economy. The Chamber will ask in January that the stakeholders from the City of Salisbury and Wicomico County come together to start positioning ourselves for future development. As I mentioned in the luncheon at the Economic Forecast last month, the City of Salisbury and Wicomico County must stand shoulder-to-shoulder-side-by-side and work as “one” through collaboration. We can no longer grow our area by piling on more taxes, fees, fines, or regulations. We must grow our business base. Furthermore, we can not depend on support from the State of Maryland because the state is “broke” and the Federal Government is in “free fall”.
Salisbury and Wicomico County must play to our assets. Give up on what we’re not and embrace what we are. Salisbury and Wicomico through collaboration with its stakeholders must develop a targeted marketing effort to brand and sell our region to new businesses and entrepreneurs. In other words, market a “unified message” through a professional marketing firm that understands our market needs/assets and can “target” our unified message to the right people.
Realizing this is a tall order, we must begin NOW. It will require a fundamentally different approach/thinking. It’s all about rethinking and repositioning the assets we have. It’s about attracting and retaining talent-reducing the brain-drain. Companies grow where the talent is and wants to live, i.e., build our lifestyle in the City of Salisbury and Wicomico County.
Bottom line….play to our assets; not someone else’s. Embrace what we are/can be and stake our turf !
