Project Concentrus: County’s two largest chambers and EDC seek a new way to do business together

  • By Kurt Batdorf SCBJ Editor
  • Tuesday, September 28, 2010 4:43pm
  • Business

EVERETT — Three distinct organizations are looking to see how they can create a stronger bond with their common interests.

The Everett Area Chamber of Commerce, the South Snohomish County Chamber of Commerce and the Snohomish County Economic Development Council have completed a study dubbed Project Concentrus. The goal is to “reinvent our systems” to increase economic vitality across the county.

The work of economic development councils and chambers of commerce has fundamentally changed over time, said Rick Cooper, EDC board chairman and CEO of The Everett Clinic.

“The consensus was a new approach was needed,” he said. “This recognizes that collaboration is better than going it alone.”

On Sept. 15, a 25-member oversight committee comprised of board members from the three groups met for the first time to review the recommendation of Cleveland, Ohio, consultant Donald T. Iannone &Associates: Find a way to create a single entity from your three organizations.

The committee agreed and voted unanimously to forward the recommendation to the three boards for action.

Cooper is more than enthusiastic at the prospect and was delighted with the unanimous vote to create an integrated organization.

“I hope this is just the nucleus to get this started,” Cooper said.

The three boards have a lot to do in the next six months, he said. They need to create a transitional advisory board, conduct financial due diligence, define the new entity’s structure and study how other business groups have successfully joined forces. Cooper said the next key step is hiring an executive by Jan. 1.

“We’re anxious to get rocking and rolling,” said South County Chamber board President Stan Finley. “I’m excited about this. … Its a huge undertaking, but I see the potential value as enormous.”

This early in the process no one can say what the merged entity will look like, but Cooper said he’s imagining something akin to a holding company where different boards each will focus on a specialty.

Once the new organization takes shape, Cooper said it has to engage Snohomish County’s other chambers of commerce and connect with young entrepreneurs and small businesses.

“We have to persuade our north colleagues that its worth joining this effort,” Cooper said of the Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce.

That chamber’s president, Caldie Rogers, said the Marysville-Tulalip board of directors wants to see the three groups complete their financial due diligence before it takes up the Project Concentrus issue at its Oct. 15 board meeting.

Rogers said she and the Marysville-Tulalip board have been carefully following the Project Concentrus steering committee’s work and have appreciated their consideration. She’s been forwarding the steering committee’s information to the smaller, outlying chambers of commerce to keep them up to date.

“We know change is hard,” Cooper said, “but we want to recognize the strength of what’s been done over the years and make it better.”

Cathy Reines, Everett Chamber board president, believes there’s momentum to see the recommendation through.

“I do think there are overwhelming reasons to move this project forward,” she said. “While some raised valid questions at the joint meeting, “there were no naysayers in the room.”

Everett’s board is expected to make a decision at a strategic planning meeting Oct. 14 and Reines said shes cautiously optimistic Everett will join the effort after it completes its financial due diligence.

“We need to bring these three organizations and others — in the future — together to provide vision, leadership and a voice to the county,” Reines said.

Cooper expects the EDC board to vote on Project Concentrus by next month, and he’s confident they’ll approve it.

Likewise, Finley is confident the South County board will fully support the recommendation.

Cooper said he’s glad that the staffs at the EDC and both chambers completely support the effort.

The chief executives of the three organizations met with the Snohomish County Business Journal in July in the midst of Project Concentrus to explain how it developed and what the consultant had learned so far.

South County Chamber CEO Jean Hales said the process started about a year ago as the recession continued. For her, the basic problem is that the old chamber of commerce business model is irrelevant in today’s rapidly changing business climate.

The South County Chamber’s board of directors held a retreat last fall, she said, and came up with some radical ideas to revitalize the organization. They shared their thoughts with the EDC’s board of directors, who validated the need to do something different and focus on new objectives, Hales said.

That led to the partnership with the Everett Area Chamber of Commerce, since all three organizations share many overlapping members and many of the same initiatives and approaches to improving the county’s economic vitality.

More meetings eventually led to Project Concentrus.

Deborah Knutson, chief of the EDC, said the three groups and the consultant looked around the U.S. to see how similar collaborations have fared. Some involved mergers, some involved shared funding, some involved changing old business models. Some worked, some didn’t.

Everett Chamber CEO Louise Stanton-Masten said there’s definite momentum to quickly figure out what will work in Snohomish County and “what we may create here.” That could include mergers or new organizations crossing old boundaries.

“The three of us working together is almost groundbreaking,” Stanton-Masten said.

Ahead of the report’s formal release, Hales said she wasn’t getting hung up on the consultant’s research.

“I challenge right up front the ‘turfdoms’ that exist all around the county,” Hales said.

Stanton-Masten said the oversight committee has worked with the consultant to look at ways to best serve all chamber of commerce members.

All three CEOs said the $75,000 cost of the report is money well spent.

“You need outside experts to help guide the process,” Knutson said.

Stanton-Masten said the oversight committee wanted an outsider with no preconceived notions. Iannone has a strong economic development background and can facilitate change, Hales said.

Now that the report is making the rounds, it’ll be up to the individual boards to decide how to proceed, but the three parties seem to share a vision of change for the better.

“There are going to be some new approaches that’ll benefit the business community no matter what,” Hales said.

The four main principles of Project Concentrus

1. Work together to grow the number and quality of jobs and increase family wages throughout Snohomish County.

2. Exert greater influence on public policy at all levels of government by speaking with a unified, inclusive voice for all of the county.

3. Enable both a deeper and wider network for business leaders to explore and put to work innovative solutions to the problems facing the county.

4. Become a respected, authoritative voice for the county on economic vitality.

Kurt Batdorf: kbatdorf@scbj.com; 425-339-3102.

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