Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Bill Connors. Because this is auto-generated there are likely some grammatical errors but it is still a useful tool to search text within this podcast episode.
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Introduction
Brandon Burton 0:00
This is the Chamber Chat Podcast, the show dedicated to chamber professionals to spark ideas and to get actionable tips and strategies to better serve your members and community.
Now your host, he is ready for Summer. He’s my dad, Brandon Burton.
Hello Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton. And it’s my goal here on the podcast to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
Our title sponsor is Holman Brothers Membership Sales Solutions. Let’s hear from Jason Mock, President and CEO of the San Marcos Area Chamber to learn how the Holman Brothers have provided value for his chamber.
Jason Mock 0:45
Two years ago, we brought in Holman Brothers to help our organization go to that next level. And in those two years, our team has transformed the way that we think about sponsorships and non dues revenue. And I would really encourage you if you’re looking to take your chamber to the next level to bring on the Holman Brothers.
Brandon Burton 1:01
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Guest Introduction
Our guest for this episode is Bill Connors. Bill has been the president and CEO of the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce since June of 2009. Prior to coming to Idaho Bill had broad national experience in the travel, aviation and convention industries. He was executive director of the world’s largest business travel organization, the Global Business Travel Association, from 2002 to 2009. Prior to that post, he was a senior executive for the American Society of Travel Agents and the travel Institute. President George W. Bush appointed bill to two key aviation panels in Washington DC. The Aviation Security Advisory Committee and the FAA is next gen air transportation system Council. Bill served on the National Board of Directors for the convention Industry Council, the travel business roundtable and the travel Institute. He designed and authored the national travel agency proficiency exam or tip test used throughout North America today. He was a key adviser on Marriott Hotels sales specialist program and the certified travel counselor associate designations. He has been on the Board of Governors for the Alexandria Virginia Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and a member of the GBT A’s sports travel Council. He is a longtime member of the meeting professionals International and the American society of Association Executives. As the national spokesman on travel industry issues he has been featured in or on ABC World News Tonight, CNN CNBC, the USA Today, The New York Times, the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal. He’s frequently testified before the United States Congress on travel industry issues locally. Bill was appointed by Vice Chairman of the Boise airport commission in 2013. He also participates on the Boise chambers travel industry board. He serves on the board of Boise Convention Visitors Bureau, the Pacific Northwest chapter of ASEA and is a member of sky international Boise. He is a member of the US Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100 and has served on the board of ACC. In 2018. He was elected to the board of the United States Travel Association in 2020, he was appointed by the Idaho Senate to the Idaho intrastate Air Service Committee. He was named CEO of influence by the Idaho business review. And the chamber has been named one of the top 10 places to work in Idaho for four years by the same publication. He’s a graduate of St. Lawrence University and holds four master’s degrees. Bill I’m excited to have you with me today here on chamber tap podcast. If you would take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions that are listening and go ahead and share something interesting about yourself so we can continue to get to know you a little bit better.
Bill Connors 4:50
Sure. Well, thank you, Brandon. It’s a it’s an honor and a pleasure to be with you and I appreciate what you do for the chamber industry by getting the word out there Something interesting that doesn’t show up and that very long resume you just read. I’m kind of a minor league baseball Kook baseball cook in general, but I’ve been to all the major league stadiums and and I’m up to 225 Minor League ballparks across the country. And whilst it’s a odd and somewhat obsessive hobby, it has taken me to places I normally wouldn’t go. And every city has got something interesting going on. I mean, normally I wouldn’t plan necessarily a trip to go to Fargo, North Dakota. Yeah. But I wanted to go see the ballpark in Fargo and you discover Fargo is kind of a cool little town. And they’ve got a cool little downtown going on there. And as a chamber guy as a Metro Chamber guy, now, my hobby, I can almost claim as research because I, I check out cities and see what some are doing well and what some are not doing so well. And you know, a lot of cities have the same issues that we have. And it’s so it’s a fun hobby, but it’s also sort of increased my portfolio of knowledge about metro areas across the country. So it’s, it’s been fun, and my wife puts up with it. She’s been to quite a few herself, but she’s happy to let me go and I let her go out some rural trips. And that’s it all works.
Brandon Burton 6:30
Yeah. Now you beat me to it as far as learning about those communities to where those ballparks are because there’s a lot of research that goes on there. And, and I’m sure you can explain that to your accountant. You know, it’s recently
Bill Connors 6:46
I haven’t been successful in that particular. No, write it up.
Brandon Burton 6:53
That’s good. That is a good good pastime, and a lot of fun. I personally like those minor league ballparks, and you see a lot of personality. And I’ll say as you as you travel around and see that so you
Bill Connors 7:07
see families and like I say you get to know the composition of a city, even a place like Las Vegas, where you go to the minor league park and you actually see people you don’t see on the strip, you see families, the people who work in Las Vegas, and it’s, you know, it gives you a whole different picture of every city USA.
Brandon Burton 7:27
That’s right. Well, before we get into our topic today, I’d like to have you give a little bit of background about your chamber, about the Boise Metro Chamber. Just give us an idea of size budget staff just to give some perspective before we jumped into our discussion today.
About the Boise Metro Chamber
Bill Connors 7:46
Sure. Well, the Boise Metro Chamber is almost 150 years old. We are older than the state of Idaho, we predate statehood. So we’ve been around for quite a while. I’ve got about 2000 separate business members. And they represent about 250,000 employees, and like a lot of Metro chambers and got big fortune 500 companies and I’ve got the little sandwich shop down the road. Size wise as far as staff goes. There’s about 14 members of the chamber staff. We also have were consolidated chamber. We also have the Convention Visitors Bureau with us. And we also have the economic development regional economic development agency with us. So total, we’ve got about 2829 staff here.
Brandon Burton 8:41
All right. Well, that does help give some perspective especially, you know, being more regional and having the Economic Development and Tourism and everything under that umbrella as well. It’s a unique characteristic and some definite advantages that come with that and being able to leverage some of those different things. But for our topic for discussion today, we settled on the the topic of being the same senator, which I’m looking forward to getting into this discussion with you, especially with what today’s political climate looks like. I think this is a very timely topic to discuss. So we’ll we’ll get into that as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Topic-Being the Sane Center
All right, Bill, we’re back. So as I mentioned before the break, we’re focusing our discussion about chambers being the same center. And we hear that saying quite often throughout chamber world. But I think in practice, it can become very difficult when you especially when you have very polarizing points of view on either side. And you guys have introduced a program there your chamber where you can kind of address this head on? Why don’t you take a few minutes and tell us about that program and kind of how that’s developed.
Bill Connors 12:19
Sure, we, during the pandemic, you know, when a lot of things were getting pretty dicey politically, not just here, but everywhere, you know, mask mandate versus not mask mandate, people just generally becoming nasty to each other about things. And you would think at a moment in time like that the country would unify itself a little bit, but we didn’t see that. So one of our members, who is a former state legislator, who now runs an association called the association of Idaho cities, talked to us and said, you know, we need to do something to try to create some civility, not just at the statehouse, but you know, within our own lives. So we started a series, a web series called In Search of civility, whereby we had, we invited people from both parties talked about one particular issue, and let the Republican have their five minutes of here’s what I think let the Democrat have, here’s what I think. And maybe have a more conservative Republican, here’s what I think and a more liberal democrat, here’s what I think. And just let him sort of go at it. And by the end of each one of these broadcasts, we, we have moderators that would sort of bring people to the center and say, you know, there are things you can agree on around this issue. What are those things? And like you said, how do we get to that sane center? Because that’s where I think most Americans are. It’s just the far ends of the political spectrum seem to have the loudest voices right now. So it was our attempt to give voice more to the Seine center, that messy middle, if you will, and it was highly successful. We had, we didn’t have any problems getting people to sponsor that we, we have tons of listeners every week. And again, when you’re talking about touchy issues, everybody wants to tune in and hear what’s going on.
Brandon Burton 14:38
That’s why news channels do so well. Right? Is it they’re polarized? So they do it for the negative emotions, where you guys have the polarizing for a positive purpose, which Yeah, that would sell sponsorships.
Bill Connors 14:50
Absolutely. And again, I think what it did is at least bring some legislators who were warring against each other to the table too. At least talk about why they feel the way they feel. And, and learn a little about them as human beings. That’s the other sad thing both I saw in Washington and my time there. And in any state capitol is, it’s become so polarized, people don’t talk to each other anyway, they don’t go out and have lunch together anymore. And if you, if you know people’s families, and you know who they are, you’re less likely to get nasty behind the scenes. And again, this was our small little attempt to, again, try to carve out some sanity in some of these touchy discussions. And again, it was very, very popular, and we’re going to keep doing it.
Brandon Burton 15:44
And I think that’s so key for chambers, especially in today’s world, with social media and everything, you can watch news channels and, and jump on one side of the boat, you know, left or right. And then you follow a group on Facebook, that’s like minded. And even if you don’t follow the group, those algorithms are going to put that more of what you agree with in front of you. And it makes everybody that sees things sees the world differently than you to be wrong. And it’s not a matter of right or wrong necessarily as it’s different perspective. And as that happens, it separates people to where you’re not talking to one another about the real issues, because you’re only talking to others that are like minded, and that causes even more of that division. I’m curious what some of these topics were, if you can just, you know, name off some of these topics that you guys covered in this in search of civility series.
Bill Connors 16:43
Sure. A lot of it around the COVID mandates. You know, we we were fairly open state. But some on the far right, felt we weren’t open enough and requiring masks and the whole nine yards. And pushing against that. And others, of course, we’re on the other side of it. And like you said that our whole purpose was to try to try to have Fox News meet, see us NBC, on our little program. And that’s what it provided, it provided me here’s my rationale for why I think this way. And we tackled all sorts of issues that pop up in our legislature, just like I think it’ll pop up in your Texas Legislature. You know, there’s there’s gun control issues, they’re just issues of every kind, particularly social issues that get people wound up. But again, I think the pandemic probably pitted more people against how are you going to regulate health? You know, we have discussions around who’s got the authority, our health districts, or the governor or the legislature? And, and who, who really, are the authorities? Or do we trust the doctors and the healthcare industry? That’s, you know, to me, the experts? Or do we listen to the extremes on both sides? So, so yeah, lots and lots of different issues. But again, the point is, let’s hear both sides, try to get people to at least know who the other person is. And get them talking. And I gotta admit, and I don’t think it has much to do with us. But this legislative session was much tamer than the last one than last years. And I can’t say that we can take credit for that. But if we move the needle even a little bit, that’s a good thing.
Brandon Burton 18:57
I was gonna ask what sort of outcomes you saw from that? Hopefully, that was an outcome from this. But maybe before I asked that question, Was this on YouTube or what? What platform did you use to facilitate the show this series? Yeah,
Bill Connors 19:13
it was on all of our social networks, YouTube, Facebook, the whole nine yards. We used a service called stream yard. And yeah, like I said, the viewership was was pretty significant. And again, while we were a lot of chambers are kind of shut down in terms of doing events. We created a lot of online kind of programming. Not just this programming, which, again, we’re pretty proud of but but hundreds of programs about how to utilize the federal resources that are coming in. We didn’t want to be one of these places that just posted the federal regulations on here’s how to apply for a PPP loan. We have experts get on Zoom calls and explain, here’s how you can get your application to the top of a bank’s inbox. You know, Pratt going through practically and explaining how to how to fill things out. Because again, if you’re just posting regs, who’s, who’s got the expertise to read through that stuff. So again, using using zoom and using social media, we took full advantage of that during the last couple of years. But I’m happy to say we’re, we’re doing events again, and we will have one up for 600 people next week. So
Brandon Burton 20:36
we’re back in business. That’s great. Yeah, I mean, it’s a brave thing when you go into the world of social media and put this type of content out there, because it’s open up to, you know, comments and criticism and sharing and do whatever else that that goes on there. Did you have to do any sorts of controls or moderation? Or how did you approach that?
Bill Connors 20:58
Yeah, we we had a pretty tech savvy moderator. And if you were able to read everything in the chat, you wouldn’t be in a pretty sight some of it. And we were able to edit out some of the bad stuff. But again, that our purpose isn’t to highlight the extremes, it’s to highlight that, how do we get to the middle ground? So while I didn’t think we were censoring anything, we also didn’t want the conversations to break down into ugly feud. So that wasn’t the purpose of the thing.
Brandon Burton 21:35
So you can take the most ugliest comments, and they can be one of your next guests. You know, you just pit him against somebody on the opposite side. And
Bill Connors 21:43
well, yeah, we did a little bit of that. Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon Burton 21:47
It’s just It’s a never ending supply of content. That’s true. So is this, uh, are you guys continuing the insert disability program? Or is that something that was more focused during the COVID times, or
Bill Connors 22:02
we’re gonna continue, we’re gonna continue it. And as a matter of fact, we’re giving one of our highest awards to, to this gal I mentioned earlier, a former legislator who came up with this idea. And we’re giving her a big award on Tuesday, just to highlight the that particular program. So we’ll keep it keep it going.
Brandon Burton 22:24
That’s great. I know, there’s a former a co worker that I’ve talked with a lot, and we see things very differently politically. But things never get ugly between us when we talk because we’re able to be civil about it, we’re able to recognize you’d have your view of the world, I have my view, and there is a lot more that overlaps than what doesn’t overlap, and to be able to help bring up that common ground, and really just elevate society in general. And unfortunately, these social media companies and new major news outlets, they’ve got so much control over our attention, that it just steals our attention away to tell this negative. So the more positive discussions, positive unity that we can provide is so important in chambers are that place to be that same center and and they say that that’s how, you know if you’re being successful, right? Is it the far right, thanks, you’re too liberal on the far left thinks you’re way too conservative, then you’re doing a good job.
Bill Connors 23:30
Yeah. Well, no matter where you stand on an issue, you’re gonna lose a couple people on either side. Sometimes that’s hard for me to fathom, but that’s the nature of the business.
Brandon Burton 23:43
Yeah. So had any of the discussions or outcomes from these discussions? Help project anything as far as advocacy goes from your your efforts there?
Bill Connors 23:56
Well, yeah, like I said, the this legislative legislative session was a lot tamer, we had a lot of what we called crazy bills that appeared. And most of those were shut down by our Senate, which is a little more rational. And we were able to stop some of the really crazy stuff. You know, that we had a and it not all of it was about the pandemic. I mean, there. Like I said, touchy issues when it’s critical race theory being taught in the universities, that kind of thing. We killed a lot of those crazy bills. And again, I can’t We can’t take credit for our little, our little program. But the discussions at the legislature this year actually produced some bipartisan agreements and some good things for business, which of course is what we’re all about. We got both I used to agree on a personal income tax cut, and a business tax cut, and at the same time increased our education spending to record levels this year, because we had a pretty nice surplus going into this. So yeah, I think I think in general, good things happen when you can get people talking to each other. And as you’ve been talking about, just keep stressing the the majority of Idahoans, the majority of Americans are somewhere in that middle, or not way out on the fringes, even though the fringes might be the loudest. Most of us are in the middle. And that’s where you get stuff done. And we got stuff done this year.
Brandon Burton 25:48
That’s great. And then the trick is, tends to be the fringes show up to vote. So how do you get that that segment of the population that doesn’t show up to vote or to share their opinion to voice or to share their voice? How do you get them engaged?
Bill Connors 26:06
Yeah, and that’s part of what we do, too. We do candidate forums, we do a lot of voter education kinds of things. But you’re right, there’s a, you know, it’s almost shameful. If you look at the percentage of voters in the primary elections, which, here in Idaho, become particularly important. Whoever wins the Republican primary in many areas of the state becomes the candidate. And very few, you know, I think it’s 17 18% of the people who are eligible to vote in primaries. But this is a big one this year for us. And I think we’re going to have our governor has a primary challenge. Our lieutenant governor has a primary challenge. Our State School Superintendent has a primary challenge, our Secretary of State has a primary challenge, our Attorney General has a primary challenge. So when those big statewide offices show up, we make a point of, hey, this is one of the most important elections we’ll have in a decade. So at least as far as Idaho is concerned. So get out there and vote on May 17, which is our primary day.
Brandon Burton 27:21
Yeah. So we currently as we’re talking right now, we have a school bond election going on in our area, and, and we’re in a small community in North Texas, just outside of Dallas, and our areas just been exploding with new growth. And a lot of people from out of state moving here. And we have a very small school district, and there’s a big need to accommodate, you know, all the classrooms are already full. So this bond has been proposed. And it’s a thing, it’s a $380 million bond, I mean, something, it’s a big amount of money. And my wife happens to work for the school district. So some of the early numbers, they could send me you don’t get all the data. But when there, as of about three days ago, there had been 500 votes cast in total. Those 500 votes are dictating $380 million worth of bonds, and then only about 80% of those votes for people that have no affiliation with the school district. So they don’t work for the school. They don’t have kids in the school, they don’t have. And it’s like, I don’t know what you do to get people engaged to vote for what matters show up, because it matters either way, you know, on a bond issue a state, you know, elections, you know, Senate’s governor’s national elections, that all matters, and to get them to see, you know, especially the things and your community level, this is going to affect property taxes, like you need to voice your opinion, you need to go cast your votes. So
Bill Connors 29:03
well, you guys in Texas are going through what we’re going through, and that is, you know, 1000s and 1000s of people moving in a lot from California. We have on the average in 75 people a day moving into the Boise Metro. The majority of those are from California, the rest are from Seattle, the Bay Area. La and you’re right i mean it’s we have to rebuild our infrastructure to to accommodate all these things, whether it’s schools, roads, transit, you name it. And you know, the natives get restless. Let’s face it, but you know, it’s part of the Our job is chambers to let people know that, hey, growth is not necessarily a bad thing. Yes, your property tax free will probably look a little different. But so does the value of your home all of a sudden, you have some way health equity that you didn’t have, you know, five years ago. And I know that’s hard to tell somebody who’s living on a fixed income. But that’s one of the issues, by the way that, you know, we I really think we’ve got to rethink how we fund public education. You know, I hear a lot of it depends on property tax. But our legislature also, more than half our budget goes to public education. And I just think we have to rethink how we fund it. And one of the things we did this year and and it was one of those bipartisan agreements, was offer every school district in the state of Idaho, offer all the teachers to go on the state’s MediCal benefit plan, which is much more robust, robust than some of the local districts can afford. And really was a boon to local school districts in terms of affordability, because it benefit packages are one of the biggest cost centers for, for any school district, and with the state, stepping in to really lower rates significantly, and then 1000s of dollars to every single teachers benefit package. And that was a bill that everybody agreed on, on both sides. For the very issue that you’re talking about, you know, eventually, what you’re looking at is, hey, maybe we don’t have to go out for a bond, if we can successfully funded schools in a creative way.
Brandon Burton 31:36
Right? Yeah, that’s a great point. But I wanted to to ask you, if you might have a tip or action item that you’d like to share for Chamber Champions listening to help take their chamber up to the next level?
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Bill Connors 31:53
Well, I don’t think it’ll be any surprise to anybody who your listeners, I think we as chambers, are going to have to, at least in the next five to 10 years really focused on workforce issues. This, you know, shortage of workers is everywhere, in every industry, and it’s going to be a problem for us. And so, you know, talent, retention, talent, attraction, those are going to be key issues. For us. That’s, again, why we’ve invested a lot of resource into some of our young professional programs, because I think, if you’ve got a good effective young professional program, that is a talent retention tool, if you get people engaged, they’re less likely to move from your community to another one. And we have one of the largest young professional programs out there. So I think that’s something that’s got to be on all of our radars. And then here, like I said, we’re fairly unique, there’s only a handful of chambers that have all three entities under one roof, the Economic Development Group, the Convention Visitors Bureau, which we merged in with us a few years ago. And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’s, it’s good for to two big reasons. One, the efficiency you get toward from for the community, you don’t need three sets of accountants and three sets of receptionists and three buildings, and three, you know, we think we give this community a lot more bang for the buck by consolidating. But what I see is more important, is the synergy between the three groups where in a lot of cities, those three groups are separate. They’re all competing for the same resources, and oftentimes are competing with each other. And here, the strategic nature of getting all three of them to work together give a classic example if I if we got time. Yeah. So my economic development guy who’s right down the hall, comes to me a couple years ago says, Hey, we’re getting a lot of inquiries about data centers coming to Idaho. And I said, why? Well, because Idaho has got plenty of water. We’ve got affordable electricity, and we don’t have natural disasters, and that’s what they are looking for. And I said, why aren’t we getting them? Then? He says, Well, what we don’t have that 17 other states do have is a tax exemption on equipment. And these things are very equipment dependent. So the chamber guy and our advocacy group goes to the legislature gets a bill passed to get a tax exemption on equipment. Then I walked down the hall to my Convention and Visitor’s Bureau gal and say, see if you can get the National Association of data center managers convention to come to Boise, who better than to have five of those people walking around town. And sure enough, this year, we just got announced MIT from Facebook, they’re gonna build a huge data centers. But that’s, that’s three other organizations all working together to help get something done. We’re in. Whereas I think in a lot of places, those organizations sort of compete not only for resource, but you know, trying to claim victory for one thing. But we’re all in the same business, we’re promoting our particular city or state. So, you know, my advice, and I know a lot of people don’t like to hear this, but work as closely as you can with your economic development guys and your year’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau people.
Brandon Burton 35:39
I think that’s a great tip, if you are able to get a lot more leverage and a lot more bang for your buck, as you’re saying, by being able to combine those resources as much as possible. So I like asking everyone this question, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Future of Chambers
Bill Connors 36:01
Yeah, I think we’re always going to be in the role of convener. And, you know, if we ever lose that, then I think we’re in trouble. A lot of what we you and I just talked about bringing people to the middle. That’s the only way you get things done. And I think, chambers have always got to play that role going forward. And like I said, the other thing is, we really got to think harder about talent, and how, how we’re going to fill all these jobs in the future. And think about, you know, does everybody need a bachelor’s degree? Or can you win, you got people out there who go get their CDL license and can make $100,000 a year driving a truck? Maybe we are rethink about, you know, where, where we put our educational resources, our higher educational resources. So, again, I think the Chamber’s roles will always be to be to be effective. We’ll be as conveners bringing people to the middle and getting stuff done.
Brandon Burton 37:10
I love it. So I wanted to give you a chance bill to share any contact information for any listeners who might want to reach out and connect with you. And also if they wanted to check out your In Search of civility program, where can they find that as well? Yep.
Connect with Bill Connors
Bill Connors 37:26
Our websites boisechamber.org. And my email is bconnors@boisechamber.org. Yeah, happy to talk to anybody and I, what I what I do love about this business. And as you said at the head of the program, I’m pretty active in ACCE and the US Chamber and I’ve gotten to know my counterparts all over the country. And we’re very good at stealing each other’s ideas. And that’s, that’s always a good
Brandon Burton 38:02
thing. That’s right. And I’ll get this contact information in our show notes for this episode. But Bill, this has been a great discussion. I’m glad to have had you on the podcast. And I appreciate you sharing this example of of establishing yourself as that same center and the place where all chambers really need to be residing. So thank you for that.
Bill Connors 38:26
Well, thank you very much, Brandon, and thanks for what you do for chambers all across the country.
Brandon Burton 38:31
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