A Busy Week for the Business Community

Culpeper Star Exponent

Business Monday

August 18, 2014

Jim Charapich

The Culpeper Chamber of Commerce has had a busy week. We have hosted the LEAD Culpeper Session on Economic Development as a part of our leadership development program. We participated in an Amtrak update from the Amtrak Director of Government Affairs for our region. We also collaborated with Culpeper County Public Schools for the 44th Annual (BIE) Business, Industry, & Education Day. These milestone events were included in our normal course of operations serving the daily needs of our members and the business community in Culpeper. Finally, the Chamber has worked to finalize plans to move from the Depot to the new location on Sperryville Pike later this week and weather permitting.

LEAD Culpeper contributes significantly to the mission of the Culpeper Chamber of Commerce, “To be the voice of the business community working to promote, build, and support the most effective climate for economic development.” The program is developed and deployed by members and staff that have participated in the program. The Economic Development session was led by Chris Pearson, CPA and Principal at Yount, Hyde, & Barbour, P.C. and Lori Loy from the Culpeper County Department of Economic Development. The sessions included presentations from Patrick Mulhern, Director, Town of Culpeper Planning Department and Carl Sachs, Director, Culpeper County Economic Development. In addition, We were very fortunate to have Sara Dunnigan, of SJ Dunnigan Consulting from Richmond to provide special data analytics about the Culpeper workforce. MS. Dunnigan's mastery of the data and clarity of application to Culpeper and the region were exceptional. We also took a slightly different approach to Economic Development and asked Pam Fitzgerald, Managing Partner, The Ivy Group to discuss libraries as engines of economic development. This was another world class presentation given that the Ivy Group works with large library clients globally. We are also appreciative of the open doors from Hardwood Artisans and Semper Green for the tours of their facilities.

In the update from Amtrak, it is clear that the impact of the Depot Amtrak Station contributes to our local economy in many ways. Amtrak is very proactive in promoting Amtrak stations and thus destinations like Culpeper via social media. We can support the effort as Amtrak travelers by posting our photos and positive comments about the Culpeper rail experience to Facebook.com/Amtrak, Twitter.com/Amtrak, YouTube (send video to social@amtrak.com), and Instagram #Amtrak.

Finally, The 44th Annual BIE Day was another big success. The collaboration with business and our school system is unique. Our business community is interested in ways to support our educators in a time when their resources are stretched. Our educators are a major influence on the future of our workforce. As business, we are thankful to have the opportunity to provide an annual thank you to our educators and school administrators. In turn, having our teachers and administrators interested in supporting local business strengthens the close community network.

 

Thank you to the Culpeper County educators and administration for your great work and dedication. We wish you the best in the 2014 - 2015 school year. Thank you to our many BIE Day business sponsors and contributors, making the event possible.