No Boundaries: For Larger Chambers of Commerce, Impact Extends Beyond City Limits (2024)

There is a saying among chambers of commerce: Once you’ve seen one chamber, you’ve seen one chamber. While they may have similar responsibilities when it comes to recruiting and retaining businesses, ensuring a skilled workforce, and promoting the city, each chamber approaches its work in a different way.

For large chambers, that work often extends beyond the borders of the city into neighboring areas from which it draws its workers. Whether connecting the diverse communities within a city to ensure equal opportunities for all businesses or collaborating with neighboring chambers to grow stronger as a region, it is clear that large chambers are a vital part of the economic landscape.

LITTLE ROCK

With more than 2,000 members, the Little Rock Regional Chamber is just as robust as the city it serves, and with a reach that extends far beyond the capital city, Jay Chesshir, president and CEO, said the size of the growing central Arkansas metro allows chamber to tout a workforce of not just the 200,000-plus who live in Little Rock but the more than 1 million population of central Arkansas when attracting companies on a global stage.

“It helps us get outside of just Little Rock proper while being the state’s capital city, while being the state’s largest city and having its own attributes unto itself,” he said. “It gives us the opportunity to market not just those but also the attributes of places around this region, from Searcy to Pine Bluff, from Morrilton to Malvern. All of those places, literally, are part of our marketing, and it gives us the opportunity to help them grow while we, together, grow.”

While big wins such as the addition of Norwegian food packaging company Elopak to the Port of Little Rock and the expansion of Dassault Falcon Jet’s Little Rock operations might make headlines, Chesshir said the bulk of the chamber’s work is with small and minority-owned businesses, as well as technology enterprises of all sizes.

The Small Business Impact Awards are one example of the chamber’s work to champion small businesses. The chamber also supports its members through events such as a monthly human resources luncheon and recently launched a regional survey to provide members with information about wages and benefits in various sectors.

The chamber’s workforce development initiatives have become even more important as businesses struggle to find workers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he added. Programs such as the Academies of Central Arkansas help young people become workforce ready by exposing them to potential career paths in high school, and the chamber also worked to attract talent through the Love, Little Rock campaign.

“It’s about branding Little Rock and the opportunities that are available here, which was part of the Love Connection campaign to show people around the country and around the world that amazing opportunities exist here and are available here, maybe at a pace of life and a quality of life and a cost of living that’s far better than wherever they are,” he said. “That’s why we’re out doing social media mining, trying to find these folks in specific areas and specific skill sets to show them that there are amazing opportunities here to either give them a reason to come for the first time or, in many cases, to come back home.”

The chamber also took an active role in the development of the Little Rock Technology Park, as well as the new Downtown Little Rock Master Plan, which Chesshir said came about while planning for the Interstate 30 corridor expansion.

With so many commuters to the city, “miles to minutes” is key, and the chamber works to advocate for enhanced transportation infrastructure on a regional level, Chesshir said. The project enabled the creation of new greenspace downtown, and that kind of quality-of-life improvement translates to economic development by making Little Rock an even better place for employees to live and work, he added.

“We talk about business, and it seems to be this big nameless, faceless thing when in reality, business is nothing more than individuals coming together, trying to provide a product or service that will be helpful and will give them the opportunity to grow in this community, and so when it’s all said and done, it really comes down to being about people,” he said. “Folks want a great place to live that’s safe, that has wonderful education opportunities, that has wonderful outdoor and indoor amenities, a place where people would choose to live regardless of whether or not the job was here.”

NORTH LITTLE ROCK

To Derrell Hartwick, president and CEO of the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, creating a thriving business community is all about building relationships. Becoming part of the community is critical to the success of the chamber’s nearly 1,300 members, he said.

“You used to have it where the company had 100 employees to choose from, and now the employee has 100 companies to choose from,” he said, “so when you see a company that’s investing in its community, it’s investing in its employees, that’s where people want to go and work, and they want to stay there.”

The chamber hosts weekly networking events to facilitate business retention by connecting business leaders with other business leaders, and Hartwick said he personally goes on retention calls to ensure local businesses are satisfied with the city.

“If it’s something as small as a pothole in front of your business that obstructs your customers from getting there, these individuals have a business to run, and we need to make sure that we can help them with that,” he said. “That may be connecting them with the city, and I always tell our businesses, ‘You need to call your chamber of commerce first because we work for you.’”

Quality employees bring not only household names such as Dollar General and Amazon to the city but also smaller companies such as Federal Metal, which Hartwick said are equally important to the city’s economic development.

The chamber also supports the city in times of economic distress, such as last year’s Tyson Food plant closure. Hartwick said the chamber organized a job fair that included about 40 companies and helped the majority of the more than 300 former Tyson employees find work.

He added that the chamber is especially active when it comes to supporting minority-owned businesses and recently brought on Jorge González as director of business inclusion to facilitate service to Hispanic-owned businesses. Year over year, the chamber grew its minority sector by 10 percent, Hartwick said.

The North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce spearheaded the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame and recently created the Arkansas Latino Hall of Fame, which will host its first induction ceremony Oct. 24.

Although the chamber is located in the Argenta Arts District, which is often the recipient of a well-deserved spotlight, Hartwick stressed that his is not a downtown chamber and seeks to represent all areas of the vast city, from Park Hill and Lakewood to Rose City and Levi.

“When we have a business move in or we have an event, it’s going to affect all of us, so let’s make sure that everyone knows that they’re heard, everyone knows that they’re a part of this and it’s for the greater good,” he said. “A rising tide raises all ships, and so what’s good for Argenta is good for Levi. What’s good for Rose City is good for McCain.”

FAYETTEVILLE

Considering the continued growth of Springdale, the up-and-coming hipster vibes of Rogers, and the arts and culture behemoth that Bentonville has become, one might forgive Fayetteville for being jealous of its neighbors, but to hear Steve Clark, president and CEO of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, preach the gospel of northwest Arkansas is to know that the region’s largest city is not jilted but elated.

“I view my role as simply a part of the team,” he said. “We tease each other. You know, Friday night, I’ve got on [Fayetteville High School Bulldog] purple. I’ve got the shoes. I’ve got the pants. I’ve got the shirt. I’ve got the jacket. I’ve got the hat. I’ve got the blanket. It’s all purple. I don’t have a purple car. I don’t have a purple car. I have a red car. You can see I’m very loyal to our Razorbacks, but I will tell you that my job is to be a collaborator. My job is to be an instigator, my job is to be an innovator, but my overarching job is to be a collaborator.”

That was not always the case, however, and Clark said the road to regionalism was as long and winding as the Pig Trail. While he was growing up in Leachville, a small city in northeast Arkansas, hometown pride was everything, he said, but times have changed.

“Now the world is our home,” he said. “The world is our home, and we didn’t necessarily ask for that. Neither did any other region of our state, but for us, where we’re located, we recognized that Benton, Washington and Madison counties in the furthest northwest corner, we are closer to Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, [Missouri], or at least as close as we were to Little Rock. We can drive to Chicago as fast as we can drive to Lake Village. We can easily drive to Dallas faster than we can drive to Memphis, and so you begin to see that we’re in a region, and it took us a while to see that, honestly.”

Clark said he is part of a group of chamber leaders in the region’s five largest cities: Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale, Rogers and Siloam Springs. United by the mantra, “Life works here,” the group collaborates on regional projects such as the development of the Northwest Arkansas National Airport while maintaining the individuality of each city.

Bentonville offers world-class retail and art, he said. Rogers is all about vendors, Springdale is known for manufacturing and protein, and Siloam Springs is a modern-day Mayberry, he added.

“I tell people Fayetteville’s about eds,” he said. “That’s the university and our public schools and all of our charter schools. We can teach you anything you want to know from your first breath to your last. We’re about eds. We’re about meds. Washington Regional is the largest public hospital in northwest Arkansas, a little over 400-plus beds, second-largest employer in the city of Fayetteville.”

Clark can go down the list of major employers, from the city’s top employer, the University of Arkansas, to its third-largest employer, the local school district, and on. None are the size of Walmart, J.B. Hunt or Tyson, he said, but they have just as much impact regionally.

“I think our whole strength in everything we’ve done is we walk, talk and act, dance, sing, smile like a region,” he said.

With about 1,400 members, the chamber works to prepare the employees of tomorrow, including those growing up in small towns outside the city who will likely work and go to college in Fayetteville. The chamber provides those students with training through the Heartland Advanced Medical Manufacturing Regional Cluster, or HAMMRC, and Clark said he believes his is the only chamber in the U.S. that offers robotics certifications through its Fab Lab.

He said Fayetteville’s history of innovation stretches back to Reconstruction, when the then-unknown city was one of only two in Arkansas to apply for a land-grant college.

“Now we’re sitting here saying, ‘You know what? We’re those same folks. We’re exactly those same folks,’” he said. “We’re going to bet on tomorrow, and we do that by using all the resources of the region.”

BENTONVILLE

Bentonville’s growth over the past 10 years has attracted national attention. The Benton County seat and northern anchor of the northwest Arkansas metropolitan area, Bentonville saw 53 percent growth between 2010 and 2020 — U.S. Census Bureau counts of 35,301 to 54,164 — and its growth has shown no signs of slowing in the current decade. The estimated 2023 population came in at 59,471.

From 1990 to 2010, the city grew by roughly 77 percent. Such growth can bring hardships, but Brandom Gengelbach, president and CEO of the Greater Bentonville Area Chamber of Commerce, said he welcomes the challenges associated with growing the economy of a fast-growing city.

“The biggest challenges are often opportunities in disguise,” he said. “We aim to unite locals and newcomers to address the growth issues we face. Our theme this year is ‘Every Step of the Way,’ which is designed to bring these groups together. A united front is often the missing ingredient in high-growth communities, and the chamber is well-positioned to foster this unity.”

As the city continues to grow and welcome new residents from across the country, Gengelbach said the city is prioritizing thoughtful growth for the next 20 years.

“We’re involved in Plan Bentonville, a community conversation about future growth,” he said. “Our community is addressing key questions. What character do we want to cultivate? How should our streets feel and function? Where should we encourage growth, and where should we preserve what we love about Bentonville? Through Plan Bentonville, we’re part of a collective effort to create a comprehensive plan and update zoning codes to align with our community’s aspirations.

“Additionally, we’re advocating for critical infrastructure investments, especially in water and sewer systems. Our upcoming Build Bentonville luncheon, themed ‘Below the Surface,’ will highlight the importance of this infrastructure to local business leaders.”

The Bentonville chamber’s service area includes the surrounding towns of Centerton, Bella Vista and Pea Ridge, and its membership stands at roughly 1,000 businesses.

“We work seamlessly across these cities to create a cohesive and vibrant community. The same collaborative approach extends to our northwest Arkansas region,” Gengelbach said. “Our chamber’s primary focus is growing and developing the greater Bentonville economy and creating prosperity for all. We recently conducted a series of focus groups to understand the needs of current, past and prospective members. We are now revamping our member-benefits offerings based on these conversations to ensure we remain relevant to those we serve.”

In high-growth communities like Bentonville, Gengelbach said established businesses and leaders can sometimes be overlooked. The chamber’s role, he added, is to support both new companies and those that have helped shape Bentonville.

“When new folks arrive, they face a range of needs, from finding talent and navigating real estate to understanding educational options and exploring business incentives,” he said. “We provide personalized assistance to help them settle in. Our chamber offers resources, connects them with local experts and ensures they feel a part of the community from day one. Whether it’s introducing them to key community members or helping them understand the local business landscape, we’re here to make their transition as smooth as possible.”

Gengalbach took over as CEO of the Bentonville chamber in October 2023. He previously served as president and CEO of the Fort Worth Chamber in Texas. As a relative newcomer, Gengelbach said he has noticed a perception that isolates northwest Arkansas from the rest of the state.

“For any community to succeed, we must rely on the resources and strengths of the entire state,” he said. “Building relationships with state business and community leaders and learning from peers in other cities, like Conway, is crucial for the Bentonville area. Across Arkansas, we have tremendous opportunities to grow individually and collectively, and I want to do more to ensure we are all working together for the good of Arkansas.”

CONWAY

Brad Lacy, president and CEO of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce, said there is another saying among the chamber crowd: Chambers do the things that people think just happened.

“It is very true,” he said. “If you were to look back at the history of our organization, we were created to recruit the colleges here. In 1891, the chamber was created to raise money to recruit Hendrix [College], and they did. Then they did it two more times to get the other two schools. The chamber also built the first sewer system in the city in 1911 through an improvement district of property owners. The chamber rechartered the first bank in Conway after the Depression. What I think often gets lost on people is that the chamber is not our staff. We are paid to implement a vision of the business community, and the power of the chamber rests solely in the fact that it is a group of businesses that unite to grow their particular community.”

Lacy said there has been a long history of realizing visions through the chamber in Conway.

“Our members expect us to deliver big results,” he said, “whether that’s reimagining the interstate corridor or reimagining downtown. The reality of any of those projects is that it comes down to small, in some cases, block-by-block, transformations of the place — and we certainly play a part in some of that.”

Conway’s chamber is one of the largest in the state for total members. Lacy said it takes great participation from Conway’s diverse business community for the chamber to realize its vision.

“In some cases, those businesses are a single person, from home-based businesses to your traditional mom-and-pop, Main Street-type businesses to the largest employers in our community,” he said. “All of them have very different needs, I think, but I do believe that it’s fairly easy to find common ground in the things that are important to people here.”

Much common ground was made available through Conway 2035, the city’s strategic vision for growth, which was created with significant public input.

“People want this to be a really nice place to live because if we’re a really nice place to live, then that means more people want to move here, and the more that people want to move here, businesses grow,” Lacy said. “I mean, it’s not rocket science, it’s how it works. I think you’re seeing the results of some pretty laser-focused initiatives between the public and private sector that are paying pretty big dividends.”

Conway residents identified more public art as a priority, and the chamber is partnering with the University of Central Arkansas and Conway Regional Health System to purchase art for display at three new roundabouts on Donaghey Avenue. Another priority is the reimagining of the Interstate 40 corridor.

“Unfortunately, [the I-40 corridor] is not always the most attractive view of Conway, and so we got very serious about re-imagining what that corridor looked like,” Lacy said. “We hired landscape architects to come up with a master plan for the corridor that included a standard new bridge design because we knew that in the near future, we would be building some new bridges as a community, so we put those plans in place, and the city council adopted those. When you drive up and down that corridor today, you see three new bridges that look completely different than anything you see really anywhere else in Arkansas. That’s a longer-term project that will probably take another 20 years until you get the whole thing looking the same way, but you have to start somewhere.”

JONESBORO

Since Mark Young took over as president and CEO of the Jonesboro Regional Chamber of Commerce 18 years ago, one thing has remained constant, he said.

“In that time, multiple challenges have occurred for our members, from pandemics to recessions,” he said. “What has remained constant is Jonesboro’s sense of community, the desire to help our neighbors and to work together to ensure a positive business environment. The chamber has focused on providing resources for our members and helping navigate through the variety of challenges.”

Young said the 1,100-member chamber is focused on meeting its mission to enhance the quality of life through leadership, service and economic development, and it partners with the nonprofit Jonesboro Unlimited on projects to help grow the local economy. That team focus encourages the next generation of leaders and increases the chamber’s reach to share what a wonderful place Jonesboro is to live and work, he added.

Young and his team work to help newcomers become settled. The chamber cohosts the Get to Know Jonesboro program as a way to plug key new workers into the community, Young said.

“We also utilize various publications to communicate with individuals that are moving to Jonesboro to provide resources to them, and Jonesboro Unlimited has recently started a new initiative, ‘Always Jonesboro,’ that provides great information to both current residents and future residents about all of the quality-of-life amenities, great jobs and other advantages we
offer,” Young said.

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