Features

Getting Down to Business

Northampton Chamber Marks Century of Progress

Janet Warren, left, and Suzanne Beck

Janet Warren, left, and Suzanne Beck say the chamber benefits both businesses and the overall community.

In seven years, the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce will mark its centennial, and Suzanne Beck says many parallels exist between those earliest days and what the organization does today.
Beck, the chamber’s long-time president, told BusinessWest recently that the early GNCC set goals for civic responsibility in addition to the day-to-day concerns of the member businesses. In fact, the chamber was responsible for the establishment of the Northampton Community Chest in 1922 — what later became the United Way of Hampshire County. And in 1926, the Hotel Northampton was developed from an earlier and smaller structure into the elegant quarters guests enjoy know, all at the hand of the Chamber of Commerce.
“Of course we look at what our members need,” Beck said of the chamber’s role, “and we determine what we can do to meet those needs. But often, in helping the business sector move forward, there are roles for economic development and benefits to the community.”
For many, those centennial accomplishments might be hard to replicate. But within the past decade, the GNCC has excelled as a launching pad not only for business-minded subsidiaries, but also in active roles with events and organizations for the town and residents of Northampton. And, as BusinessWest reported in April, the GNCC was a catalyst for the creation of the Hampshire County Chamber of Commerce, ready to go online this year.
Joining Beck in her talk with BusinessWest was Janet Warren, current president of the chamber’s board of directors, and herself a long-time member. “We have done some research in the last handful of years which shows us that people join this chamber for a few reasons,” she said. “We know for a fact that our members would like to see a direct benefit to their business in terms of helping to grow.
“But there are also people who are joining because they know they can invest in the chamber,” she continued, “and help us work on projects that can have an overall impact within the community.”
Both Beck and Warren agree that an engaged membership, a committed board, and a dedicated staff are all dedicated to helping the GNCC get down to business. “There’s great vision, with great people, in a great community,” Warren said.

Membership Has Its Privileges
Both women said Warren’s own story of coming to the chamber was a good example of how the organization benefits its members. “She herself uses many of the programs that we offer, and has chosen to take on a critical leadership role,” Beck said. “So there must be something she likes.”
Warren smiled and introduced her own chamber piece. She’s the owner of MarCom Capital, a marketing and communications agency based in Hatfield. After working in a corporate environment in Connecticut, a lengthy commute from her family home in the Greater Northampton area, she decided 11 years ago to hang out her own shingle. “Even though I lived here, I didn’t know anyone in the business community,” she said.
“I joined the chamber almost immediately after starting up because it just seemed like the right thing to do,” she continued. “I came to a new-member orientation, and I literally got my first client there. And then, as I was leaving, another member approached me and said they needed marketing services, so I was like, ‘wow.’ I know it doesn’t always work out that way, but sometimes it does.”
For a few years, Warren said, she didn’t have much of an active role in the chamber. “I didn’t really intend to go to events, quite honestly — my kids were really little,” she explained. “For a couple of years, I just stayed connected via the communications sent to me through the chamber. Most of my business was out of the area because of the contacts from my old job.
“But getting the newsletters every month, getting the package of materials every month, it kept me connected to what was happening here,” she continued. “Then, of course, I did get more involved in committees, and it exploded.”
Member events run the gamut from the signature Arrive@5, a meet-and-greet held on the first Wednesday of every month, to new-member breakfasts. But the GNCC excels at member marketing, Beck said, and here she listed off a host of action plans. In addition to the monthly newsletter, available both in print and online, the chamber maintains an annual Explore Northampton guide, distributed to more than 22,000 local businesses and households. There is also a member-to-member value program, with special offers available between participating businesses.
That engaged membership base, however, also translates into referrals outside of the published guidebooks. “The tone of the events is very supportive, whether you’re in a new business or if you’ve been around for a while,” Beck said. “We have a very social membership. The value there is certainly that you may find someone with whom to do business, but definitely you’ll find somebody who you can rely on for support, or someone who will speak well of you when they’re out and about within the community.”

Special Effects
Like its predecessors of the early 20th century, the current iteration of the chamber has set goals for the city in which it operates. “At a certain point in the trajectory of a business, it becomes more important to be functioning in a strong environment,” Beck said. “You’ve taken care of all the primary needs of a new business, and now it’s incumbent to be operating that business in a thriving local economy. Where you are is as important as what you do.”
To that end, she outlined what the GNCC has accomplished in the 20 years she has been working with the organization. About a decade ago, the chamber’s tourism committee began talks with the administrators of the Three County Fairgrounds, all with an eye toward the city’s growing leisure-travel market.
“Destinations can often get a boost with more organized programming,” she said. “But you need certain facilities to pull that off. As it happens, the fairgrounds were going through some significant changes in the way they were operating, so we formed a partnership with the city, the chamber, and the fairgrounds. Since then, we’ve created a redevelopment strategy for the fairgrounds, raised $400,000 in public and private money to define the market opportunities for the venue, and this year, the first physical evidence was the construction of three new horse barns, which was undertaken with $4 million in state bond authorization.
This development could have far-reaching implications for the city, she explained, adding that the facilities will enable the community to host more events, and on a year-round basis. A market study has shown that this broader portfolio of events could generate an additional $35 million annually in consumer spending in the area.
Meanwhile, the GNCC has been instrumental as a launching pad for organizations to become independently operating entities. “We’ve been good at nurturing ideas, getting people together, collaborating, and then being transparent in terms of whatever is best for what needs to get done,” Warren said.
The Northampton Area Young Professionals is one good example of this. Still considered a partner organization with the GNCC, NAYP acts as a chamber of sorts to the younger members of the area’s business community.
Another example is the Northampton Business Improvement District (BID). At one time, the GNCC was responsible for the sidewalk sales, the Taste of Northampton events — “all things that members would support financially, when they were interested,” Beck recalled.
“Owners stepped up and said they couldn’t do this on a casual, ad-hoc basis,” she continued. “There’s an enormous investment in the properties downtown; in the creation of the BID, we supported it financially, and we supported with leadership. But the BID now takes on that role of downtown programming. They have a lot more money to spend than we ourselves alone would have, year after year.”
Beck and Warren were both enthusiastic about the unfolding regional organization. “Chambers across the country have been coming to the realization that you can’t get all that you want done when you’re focused only on a small area or a single municipality,” Beck said.
The Hampshire County Chamber of Commerce is close to fully funded for a target inauguration later this year. Again, Beck pointed to the GNCC’s role in this new agency as another key example of how her office has the community’s interests in mind, as well as those of the business sector.
“The EDC in Springfield is a great generator of economic-development interests for our region,” she said. “And it’s our job to set the table for Hampshire County. It doesn’t make any sense for this chamber to be pitching to site selectors. We don’t have the land, the commercial space. We have what we have. And we just need to look at a much bigger footprint.
“And, of course,” Beck added, “the chamber knows that what is good for business in the region is going to be a game changer for us all.”