Below is an auto-generated transcription of my conversation with Ron Bunch. 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.
Voiceover Talent 0:14
And now your host he believes it is important for chambers to produce digital content. He’s my dad Brandon Burton.
Brandon Burton 0:22
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to the Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton, and it’s my goal to introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community.
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Matt Morrow 0:46
Holman Brothers provide a great training for our sales team in terms of just outstanding sales techniques. But maybe even more importantly than that, they were able to provide us with a system a process that was repeatable and in that we’re able to see very clearly from one month to the next how the how the pipeline is doing, what prospects are in it, what kind of progress we’re making and what we can do to coach people to success.
Brandon Burton 1:08
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Guest Introduction
You’re joining us for our 2022 ACCE chamber the year finalist series. And our guest for this episode is Ron Bunch. Ron is here with us today representing the Bowling Green Area Chamber as their President and CEO in their bid for for chamber of the year. But Ron as he leads the Bowling Green Area Chamber they are a five star credited chamber, placing in the top 1% of all chambers in America. The Bowling Green Area Chamber has served the Bowling Green and Warren County area for more than 85 years. As the driving force for the business community in Bowling Green Warren County. The chamber also serves as the lead economic development organization for the region and is responsible for the South Central Kentucky Regional Economic Development Partnership. Since Ron joined the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, their community has announced over $6.1 billion in capital investment and more than 11,200 new jobs. Bowling Green has been ranked in the top six nationally by site selection magazine for the top 10 metros for new and expanding facilities for populations under 200,000 for nine consecutive years, including number one overall in 2018. The Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce has also won two consecutive Matt Conway awards from site selection magazine, which recognized the team as a top 20 economic development organization in the country for their performance in 2020 and 2021. Simultaneously, the Chamber has been invited to apply for chamber the year in the US by the by ACCE for five consecutive years and making it to the finalist stage for three of those years. Ron received the Kentucky Association for Economic Development’s 2014 James J. Coleman Community Economic professional of the year with nearly 30 years of professional economic development experience. Ron is a certified economic developer and his lead successful local and regional economic development efforts in Florida, Virginia and South Carolina before coming to Kentucky. Ron, welcome back to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m excited to have you with us today, especially under these conditions is at chamber the year finalist. Again, that is a great feat. But take a moment to say hello to all the Chamber Champions out there listening and share something interesting about yourself so you can get to know you a little better.
Ron Bunch 4:44
Well, I really appreciate you having me back on again. Let’s see something interesting about me. I went to West Point and one of the training opportunities I had while at West Point was to go to Northern warfare training in Alaska. So I got to do front spiking for bass rescue and all that other stuff while we lived on the glacier for a week as well, too. So it was a really great experience. So probably not many people know that.
Brandon Burton 5:11
That is pretty interesting and quite the experience to so
Ron Bunch 5:16
that was some of the best training I’ve ever done. And it was, it was really great.
Brandon Burton 5:20
Yeah, that’s awesome. So I’ll share it. A fun fact, too, is that Ron was a guest of ours back on Episode 24, which was the actually the very first chamber of the year finalist interview that I did on the podcast. So he, he helped pilot this series, originally back in 2019. So if anybody wants to go back and check that out, I think encourage you probably not to because I probably wasn’t as good then. And it wasn’t as well refined. But I’m excited that’s
Ron Bunch 5:51
still going on, considering I was the first guest.
Brandon Burton 5:56
That’s right, and we’re up to episode 182. Now on this one, so we’ve come a long ways from there. But Ron, take a minute and tell us about the bowling green area Chamber just to give us some perspective of size, staff budget, scope of work, that sort of thing to kind of give us
About the Bowling Green Area Chamber
Ron Bunch 6:12
some perspective. Sure, in our chambers, around 1300 partners or members, our annual budgets around 2.4 million. We’ve got a staff of approximately 16 full time, folks, we’re changing it up a little bit. Right now we do have some virtual employees that were contracted with reasonably we try that out. But probably the most unique part is that we run six different companies. So there’s five additional companies beyond the chamber, chamber houses, all the employees, but we have multiple development companies, foundations, so multiple pieces that we operate with one common management team.
Brandon Burton 6:50
Right. So those additional companies, are they primarily focused around economic development? And are the foundations, I guess, give us give us a little more sampling what that looks like. Yeah,
Ron Bunch 7:01
it’s sort of a balance. You know, two of them are development companies. So one of the public development company that owns and operates the trans Park was a private nonprofit development company that developed the south Industrial Park and own some buildings. And it’s been the tool that we use to build speculative building. Another entity is a public entity that we use to facilitate incentives and bond issues. We’ve got 2501 C threes. One is our foundation that we’ve used to raise money for what started out as Leader in Me that’s evolved into SC K launch, which is our K 12, comprehensive talent initiative, we’ve raised and invested about 2.6 million at this point. After that, we have another entity that’s a training Consortium. So we seek out and bid and deliver on Demand training for different groups of companies through it. And then there’s the chain province.
Brandon Burton 7:59
Yeah, you guys know how to stay busy and make it work. So
Ron Bunch 8:02
there’s no shortage of more money. So if anybody’s looking for a board meeting in DC, come on down here. We’ll set you up with one. That’s right.
Brandon Burton 8:09
But to put you in a room, right. Well, as I say, chamber, the year finalist series rolls out, what I like to do is focus primarily on the two programs that you guys submitted as your program synopsis on the chamber that your application. So I look forward to diving into what those programs are learning more about the impact you guys are making in your community. As soon as we get back from this quick break.
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Topic-Chamber of the Year Application Programs
All right, Ron, we’re back. Why don’t you take us through what the two programs are that you guys submitted on your chamber the your application just first at a high level and then we’ll we’ll circle back and get into a little more
Ron Bunch 10:57
detail on each of them. Sure, the two different areas we highlight this time one is a follow on initiative in talent. So for the 11 plus years that I’ve been here, 10 plus of those 11 have been focused on talent. And what we build out with SDK launch our regional talent initiative that spans the K 12, system, city and county schools, as well as what we’ve done a public workforce. So one of those is minorities in engineering, and our goal there was to seek to engage more minorities in K 12, and help lead them to engineering occupations, and education through our university. And then the other initiative is in our role of managing, developing and growing the trans Park, which was a 900 acre business park when we got here. That initiative, we essentially added double the acreage in about a 24 month period. And then were able to win several different projects as a result of that, during the pandemic. So when not many people were investing in more product development, we were able to convince our city in Canada invest in that and it really produced a lot of dividend for
Brandon Burton 12:14
that is that is a pretty pretty large impact there on the growth of the transport Web. Say, let’s dive a little deeper into that one. How did you guys approach that? I know as we went into the pandemic, yeah, we all thought it was gonna be two weeks, right? A little longer, right?
Ron Bunch 12:35
In our programs, and
Brandon Burton 12:38
there’s a reflection there, right? So how did you guys go about kind of seeing through the mess of the pandemic and kind of seeing where the light is at the end of the tunnel and the need to continue building, especially in this trans Park area to be able to double the acreage and investment in that area? What was your selling points and to be able to have clarity through all that?
Ron Bunch 13:02
Now, let’s that’s awesome. The so obviously, we’ve been managing the trans park all along. And as you mentioned earlier, we’ve been very blessed to be nationally ranked and economic development for nine consecutive years now. And so we’ve built some success in the transport and developing that winning projects. In the even during the pandemic, we were able to win 20 different projects. And so we both saw an increase in activity and a reduction in available property. But we had been talking about growing the transport for some time. So what the the effects of the pandemic were that, you know, we saw more global companies. So when you look at global impact, we were talking with more global companies that were looking for available product so that they could change their supply chain. We also knew from a scarcity and abundance standpoint that those communities that had an abundant amount of property would be more successful, because we had a track record and working with companies successfully. And but we knew we had a scarcity both on utilities and property. And so when you look to the Horizon Report, I mean, those are two of the key factors in our analysis of the transport. So really a couple of things played into it, you know, one was attractive, we had a winning project. So we’ve had let’s see, prior to the recent wins about three of the top investments in Kentucky in a given year in the transparency and we have consistently performed so the Sydney county had confidence in us. And so we began a conversation with them about doubling their investment from around 25 million to 40 plus almost 50 million in the trans Park and they saw the wisdom in that during the pandemic. So they put together a bond issue issued $46 million in debt that allowed us to acquire almost 608 First, and that allowed us to win several projects. And then, as we were recording one of the major projects, we it turned out, we needed an additional 14 to 16 acres. So we went back to the city and the county, who went into reserves to then provide funds so that we could buy additional property this time about, I think it was close to 500 acres or so and all said and done in a 24 month period, we brought on 1100 acres, which is larger than the original trans Park. And we’ve now won several projects, including the Envision project, which is the state’s second largest investment in Kentucky history. So had we not had the advocacy and relationships with local government, have we not performed we would have never been able to make that case for them to invest in such a challenging time. And so like everybody, we were also dealing with the effects of the pandemic and reassuring business and clarifying things for business and evolving how we do business. But we felt it was very important to bring on this additional property. And we were very blessed that it turned out to be great, we were able to win a project with ball Corporation, which is a $300 million project. Tyson Foods, which was the largest job creation project up from that point. And then the Envision project is a $2 billion investment with 2000 jobs. It’ll build about 3 million square feet here for an easy project.
Brandon Burton 16:27
Wow. That is That is awesome. So did you already have some of this in motion before the pandemic hit kind of division that where you wanted to take the trans Park? Or did the pandemic really kind of accelerate the need to be able to move forward with this?
Ron Bunch 16:42
Yeah, we had some of the conversations already happening with the city in the county because the public entity we run has appointees from the city in the county, including the city manager and others. And so they were aware we needed to increase the size of transport, we hadn’t solidified how much. And so as we did that, and then as we began to court, some of the projects that started to respond, then we identify we need even more land than we originally thought. So just after the city, the county doubled their investment, which we they had not planned to do with the 46 million, we came back say oh, by the way, another 500 acres, but that acreage allowed us to win the Tyson project and Tyson announced with 455 employees, which at that time was our largest new job announcement ever in Warren County. So that was a very exciting project. But it was amazing. Because that additional property, we needed about 14 acres to make this light work, right. And we were able to secure another 500 or so acres, that if we had not had, we could not have even talked to the folks at Envision. And so we were very blessed to be able to work the Envision project. It was pretty unique and that that mega project, we ended up having to work directly with the legislature. So I met with the Senate and I met with the House leadership, they were under NDA. And between the governor and his team and the Cabinet for Economic Development and the legislature, we were able to put together a package that ultimately won the project. So I mean, tons of parties helped us to when we were just the quarterback on the team. But what a great project.
Brandon Burton 18:22
Yeah, and what a great investment for your community as well to be able to increase his number of jobs and increases the tax revenue base for the city and county to put the money in. It truly is an investment it’s going to pay back pretty quickly. It sounds like yeah, no,
Ron Bunch 18:37
I’m glad you share it like that. Because I mean, like like all of us experience. I mean, everyone that’s a chamber leader does all they can do to take care of their community. And that’s all we’ve ever done. And in this instance, you know, we had probably 3000 jobs already in the transit Park. So it was generating a really nice return on investment to the city and the county, very positive. We’ve had, you know, we’ve been very blessed with success annually for years. And this envision project with 2000 jobs, the economic impact of that is more than the cumulative transport before it. Wow. So it’s it’s really hard to wrap your head around some of the numbers that and so I really firmly believe that the city and the county having confidence in investing during the pandemic made a huge difference. But we’re also have really worked with our team on recruiting and in closing projects. We’ve been a leader in developing what we call a continuum of property so there’s always property in different stages ready for us to CT project. So there’s been a lot of foundation work that then allowed this investment by the Sydney can to pay such dividends so quickly and we also had a reputation with Site Location consultants. stuff of being on go to group, a group that delivers. And so all those things kind of came together. But
Brandon Burton 20:06
amazing. Yeah, that’s a great win. And I look forward to seeing that continued development and the stories that come out of that that investment. And we’ve got,
Ron Bunch 20:15
we’ve got about five other projects teed up in the next 60 days. So we’re pretty excited.
Brandon Burton 20:22
That’s awesome. No, no rest there at the chamber. No.
Ron Bunch 20:26
That’s the other thing that all my chamber peers know. I mean, the chase and the courtship and the announcement are all exciting. But that’s about 20% of the work. Now we’ve got the 80% of the work of, you know, building 60 $70 million worth of infrastructure, helping with permitting, helping with incentives, helping them find talent. So now the real work begins.
Brandon Burton 20:46
The work, right. I love that impact that you guys are having there with economic development. Let’s, let’s shift gears over to the first program that you talked about with around talent and the minorities in engineering and tell us more about how that program works. How you guys saw the need to focus there. And you know, who’s involved with that, that program to make it successful? Yeah,
Ron Bunch 21:12
thanks. So, um, maybe a little preamble again, just to tie it together. So, you know, for the last decade, here, we’ve focused on talent, and we built what’s called SDK launch. So SDK is a region. So it’s also the labor market, 10 County area. And a launch is learning about unique and new careers here. And so that facet, we run the demand projections every month, that then guides our work. It’s interesting, because the Envision project to tie those two things together is cited our investments and our relationships that were built in SCK launch. That’s one of the key reasons why they chose because talent is tight everywhere. They like the fact that we had a decade of investment, a decade of relationship building a decade of different tactics that built on that core framework. And so that was a big difference maker in our courtship with envision the $2 billion project, the 2000 jobs. But the minorities in engineering specifically, was an effort to get more minorities in our community, to the university and into career. And so in this instance, we had about 11 1200 engineers in occupations now in our economy. But as we ran that monthly projection, we could see that there were 900, plus engineering slots that were going to be available. And so we became aware that in schools, students really didn’t have visibility to the courses to take that lead to engineering. Nor was there really a poll to draw any students into engineering, but specifically minorities. And so one of the companies that we call on this here had two parents that were minority with a daughter that was in school, and they brought this topic to us. And you know, up until then, even though we’re so engaged, it’s because we didn’t realize that facet. And so we convened five different companies that were here who all excited to come to the table, we put together a cohort. And we’ve begun to align the pathways in the school that then both engage and set up a series of courses that one would take, that could lead in engineering, and then we took, I think, 60 or so students to the university had a variety of different speakers, I got to be there for a couple hours of it was pretty awesome, because you had successful engineers talking about the profession and talking about all the different places you can go with it. And you had these students engaging with everything from virtual reality to just seeing hands on equipment to do prototypes and stuff. But it was the students came away, just really very impressed with it. And so now our goal is to increase the number of students that can participate, and to really make much more transparent. The pathway, of course, as one would take in high school, and then work with a group of companies University and school leadership, develop the right marketing materials to engage parents and students to make sure they know about not just the careers and what they pay, but the companies that would employ them here because we are blessed to have you know about 18% manufacturing here. So quite a array of engineers needed and with the automation, robotics and AI that’s really taking place. There’s a higher demand for a very sophisticated engineering to support that.
Brandon Burton 24:41
I love you when you started telling about this program, kind of making that connection between the SC K long CK Central Kentucky Yeah. And how that ties in to specifically with envision and seeing, as you’re given that response, I’m thinking this is just, it’s not just a program that you guys do. But this is part of your chamber DNA to say, This is who we are, this is what we do. And it bleeds through here as you go about other projects. To see, the value is.
Ron Bunch 25:17
That’s great. I mean, because you know, we’re inside it. And so for you to see that is very honoring, very important. I appreciate that it is. So like, I had been an economic development leader in three states before this five other positions. And even when I got here, one of the things we discovered quickly was the need for talent. And so as we started running the data, we could see that there was going to be a shortfall in data in people through the data, the only thing that pandemic did was make a bad problem, much worse. And so the fact that we chose to invest strategically, you know, back to scarcity and abundance, we knew that talent was going to be scarce. But we also knew that because of that talent was going to be critically important to our companies growing. On top of everything else we’ve done, we spent quite a bit of time and money and so like, some of my peers would raise money for the operations. We raised money to invest in school that we’ve raised and invested 2.6, we’re getting ready to invest raising investment up to two and a half, that will help us build out actual operations and each of the schools so you can have like a hands on Academy. So right now we have a credit union school, we have two stores. So it is great. If you ever have a bad day, which happens from time to time, in shame world, we just go to the school and see the young people enjoying the fruits of our labor. And we’re like, Okay, this is what matters, what’s the deal, what, put our shoulder back to the grind on make it work.
Brandon Burton 26:51
That’s right. And I love how, whenever I hear of any chamber that’s showing what the opportunities are to the youth coming up in their community to say, there’s great jobs here. Here’s a sampling of what a career could look like, if you stay here in our community. So any anytime you can do that, and you guys are obviously focused on focusing on minorities, specifically in engineering, because there’s a need there, right. And so seeing where the need is and filling that void. So I think that’s a great focus, a great area focus.
Ron Bunch 27:25
And what’s interesting, I mean, you can see two, we built it for the right reason. And then even with that program, the Envision project we won, we had no idea the level of engineering they were going to require. And so it was great that we had already done that, because we could point to what we already done that what we might do what we couldn’t do, we could point to what we had done. And so they really love the overall program, because it is a k 12. But that wasn’t important to you, because there’s going to be quite a bit of engineering and technicians is a very highly automated process in 3 million square feet to produce electric batteries that they don’t produce.
Brandon Burton 28:05
That is That is awesome. I love seeing these intertwining of these these programs. Ron, I wanted to ask you as how do you see the role of the bowling green area Chamber in your community?
Ron Bunch 28:21
Yeah, the I hate to keep going back to Horizon Report. But really, we see our role under that catalytic leadership. I mean, it’s our job really to listen to the business community, and then advocate at whatever level with local government, state government, federal government, whoever we need to advocate with, or to bring groups together early to make sure our businesses have what they need, not just today, but going forward. And you know, I think you can see that what we’re doing with adding twice the acreage at the Trent Park, good thing. So for those not viewing lights just went up in the building. So sorry for the distraction, but you know, investing in the transport, doubling in size, investing, you know, millions of dollars in the K 12 talent development is that catalytic leadership. So we seek to fill roles of convening people and doing what the community is not just today but into the future.
Brandon Burton 29:20
I love that and it shows you know that it’s, as we look at these chamber, the year finalists, it’s those who’ve really embraced the Horizon Report and have kind of leaned into that as far as what the future is like in their community are the ones that are being recognized and, and staying ahead of the curve, as I would say it to see what those needs are in their community. So I couldn’t agree more. I like asking everyone I have on the show. If you might have a tip or an action item for chambers that are listening who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what would you suggest
Action Item/Tip for Chamber Champions
Ron Bunch 30:04
One would be to take risks. No, it’s easy to play it safe. It’s easy to stay within the bounds of what you think the board might be accepting, or volunteers might be accepting. But you if you find the right initiatives and take those on, it will work. And so take risks would be one thing I would say, especially now, because things are changing so quickly, you’re going to have to do things that maybe you hadn’t considered before done. So that would be one thing I would say, is to take risks.
Brandon Burton 30:38
Absolutely, I see a lot of chambers don’t want to be the first one to do something, right, you want to look around and see see what other colleagues have done, how’s it worked out, let’s test the waters. But to be able to be bold and take those risks, it takes some guts, but it can pay off big time.
Ron Bunch 30:54
Yeah, I’m gonna hate to keep going back to it. But I mean, had we not invested in building the relationships have we not invested in what we’ve done both in K 12, and public workforce, we would not have won the projects that we won over the last couple years, especially. Because in that time, everyone everywhere had talent constraints, even when we talked with international companies in Japan, they have the same talent constraints. And so companies that are looking now are finding the same thing everywhere, what has helped us is we could point to a decade of investments a decade of building. And so those things made a difference for us. But it was a risk at the time to to allocate that much of our organization and to fundraise, but that versus operation of the risk is paid off.
Brandon Burton 31:44
Right. In hindsight, it made sense to focus on the future, especially with, you know, the baby boomers that would be retiring and the need for talent, but then to have that exacerbated by a worldwide pandemic, and early retirements and layoffs and all these different things. Those who were looking ahead and preparing were much better positioned to be able to weather that storm. As we look to the future of chambers, speaking of future, how do you see the future of chambers and their role going forward?
Future of Chambers
Ron Bunch 32:18
Now, I think the other thing that we have thought we had sort of dabbled in and called different things solution based selling, we finally settled on spin that Neil Rackham put out and, you know, the wrong but short version of that is to truly have a heart for the person or the business. To ask the questions, you need to ask to truly understand what their needs are and what they value. And then to seek to meet those needs and values that they have. We don’t want to be a donation, we want to provide a return on investment. So looking forward, I think, whatever you call it, whatever sales methodology you look at, I would say chambers truly having that conversation, and we set a goal, to focus on spin as our methodology, and to have a conversation with every chamber investor at least once a year, to really understand in the coming year, have your value systems changed, what do you need from us. And I think that helps us to stay relevant to stay connected. And the partners see that we’re truly interested in them. We’re not selling at them, hey, we need money for this new program or event. It’s Hey, we’re doing this because we heard from many of you that this is in demand. And they it’s paid off for us and new partners joining without even talking to sales staff retention has increased, I think we’re tracking about 89% retention, which is higher than it has been in the past. I think, while the results are still fairly early, because I want to get you know, three to five years under our belt. I think it is paying off that spending compensation. I think that’s the kind of thing that would help chambers going forward not be what we think is the thing, but do what research and conversations have told us the thing that companies need in the area
Brandon Burton 34:14
like that it does show your relevancy it shows your interest in each of those investor businesses. I’d be curious how you and maybe it’s not an answer for now, but maybe in three to five years of as you gather that feedback and what their needs are and how they’ve changed. How you avoid trying to be everything to everyone. Yeah, because you can’t accommodate every need that’s presented to you, but how do you try to group them together to see the end goal of what their needs are?
Ron Bunch 34:45
Well, you know, those things have already happened. So I mean, you know, an example of that would be SC k one, South Central Kentucky, our region again, one and that was a network. It’s an umbrella delivery from the different entrepreneurship organizations. So as we heard from that was very confusing SBDC SBA accelerator, I mean, who does what? And who do I need to talk to? So we pulled them all together and created that new brand. And now you can go to any of them, and they’ll get you to the right resource. But we, because of conversations We’ve convened, and so we don’t try to be everything to everyone we do the things that we do well, we partner with others on those things that need to exist for our businesses and make referrals to those other resources. But then we have a conversation with them about the quality of delivery that we’re looking for. So there’s a consistent kind of quality and even chamber interaction or chamber affiliate interaction.
Brandon Burton 35:41
Right, that goes back to the connector and convener role of the chamber. So absolutely. Ron, this has been a great conversation that I’ve enjoyed having you back with me on the podcast, as I like to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who’d like to reach out and learn more about how you guys are doing things and Bowling Green and maybe compete for some of these projects from you. The best way for them to reach out
Connect with Ron Bunch
Ron Bunch 36:06
well, my competitions. We just want a fair shot at it. All. Right. Yeah, so it’s Ron Bunch. So it’s ron@bgchamber.com is the email and our main lines p 270-781- 3200. So yeah, we would look for we posted multiple communities, we’ve had a lot of conversations, we love sharing things we’re doing because we want our whole country to be stronger. So anything we can do to be of assistance to our peers. We’re happy to do
Brandon Burton 36:36
absolutely. I’ll get that in the show notes for this episode. So anyone who’s walking the dog or driving the car can can look it up and reach out and connect that way but this has been a great discussion. I’m impressed with the work you guys are doing and truly making an impact there in the bowling green area. And wish you and your team best of luck with chamber the year.
Ron Bunch 36:56
Thank you sir appreciate appreciate what you’re doing to to share these best practices there, but I think it really helps get the word out for each chamber can be better for their community.
Brandon Burton 37:05
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