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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.
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat Podcast. I’m your hosts 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. You’re joining us for a special episode as part of our 2023 ACCE Chamber the Year Finalist Series.
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Brandon Burton 1:44
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Our guest for this episode is Ron Bunch. Ron is the President and CEO of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce a five star accredited chamber, which has been invited to apply for Chamber of the Year by ACCE for nine of the last 10 years, making it to the finalist stage five of those years. You can see so or listen to some of Ron’s past appearances on chamber chat podcast and episodes 24 and 182. But since Ron has joined the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, their community has announced over six and a half billion dollars in capital investment and more than 12,050 new jobs. Bowling Green has been ranked in the top six nationally by site selection magazine for the top 10 metros for new new and expanding facilities for populations under 200,000 for 10 consecutive years, including number one overall in 2018 and win three consecutive Matt Conway awards from site selection magazine, which recognize the team as a top 20 economic development organization in the country for their performance in 2020, 2021 and 2022. In 2022, the community announced its second largest project in the history of Kentucky, a $2 billion in 2000 jobs.
Ron, I’m excited to have you back with us today on Chamber Phat podcast. And first of all, congratulations to you and your team has been selected as a Chamber the Year finalist again, I’d love for you to say hello to all the Chamber Champions who are listening and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better. Oh, great.
Ron Bunch 3:50
Thank you so much for allowing me to be on here. And I really do appreciate this opportunity. We’ve been very blessed as a chamber and a community. And so thank you for having us on and talk about that. But I’m not that interesting. So let me let me see if I can get a more current thing. So both of my daughters got married last year. So two and one year and then I became a grandfather. About a month ago now for my oldest daughter just had a little girl so I got to be a grandpa so I’m excited about that.
Brandon Burton 4:22
Oh, congratulations. That’s awesome. Just start calling your grandpa Ron right. That’s exciting. So will tell us all a little bit more about the bowling green area Chamber sizes, chambers scope of work staff budget, just give us that perspective before we get into the programs that we cover in this episode.
Ron Bunch 4:45
So we’re fairly complex chamber, we actually run six different companies, our chamber part of our businesses about a $2.4 million annual budget. Got her Around 1300 partners or members, as many would call them. And we do a VOD wide variety of things with other organizations that we also run. We have a staff of about 18 to 19 people with about how you look at contract work. But we do everything from land, securing land, designing land, preparing land, building speculative buildings to the traditional things you would understand where the chamber or networking events and other activities, so pretty broad range of things, and those six organizations with six different boards.
Brandon Burton 5:38
Yeah. So in your, between that explanation, and your bio, you guys are heavy in the economic development work, which is awesome, you guys are making a huge impact there. So just for the for the listeners out there, that kind of the format that I like to do with these chamber, the year finalist interviews is I like to focus on the two programs that you included in your chamber, the your application for 2023. Maybe at just at a high level, tell us what those two programs are. And then we can circle back and dig a little deeper in both of them.
Ron Bunch 6:14
Sure, you know, and and the two different programs. One was the trans Park, which is the industrial park that we develop through the intermodal transportation authority that we run, it’s about a 2000 acre park and we landed most recently, envision in that park. Envision ASC. That’s the $2 billion 2000 job project. So we’ve talked about how we expanded the park and landed the project. The second summary was about what we’re doing with SC K, which is our region South Central Kentucky launch, which is learning about unique and new careers here. The portion of that program that focuses on eighth graders when young people are really learning their interests and aptitudes we help bring a real detailed look at what’s in the economy, what types of jobs and careers are here so that we can match that up with our interests and aptitudes greening that happens at the school level.
Brandon Burton 7:15
Awesome. Yeah, so I’m excited to dig in a little deeper on both of these kind of learn the details and maybe the origins and how you guys got to where you are now. First of all, we’ll take a quick break and then we’ll come back and dive in a little bit deeper.
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Brandon Burton 10:44
All right, Ron, we’re back. So let’s let’s go in a little bit deeper about the this trans Park project and the Envision project. You don’t that you guys attracted there. Tell us what what is the scope of this project? What were some of the origins and evolution of it to get you to where we are today with this big economic development when?
Ron Bunch 11:09
No, I appreciate that. So, you know, the beginning story really is us continuing our engagement with the public sector. The ITA, the intermodal Transportation Authority that owns the park is funded by the city in the county and we operate that public entity. And we’ve thanks to the success we’ve had, we found ourselves in a place where there was a scarcity of land that needed to be developed. And although it was during COVID, we approached the city in the county to go ahead and issue bonds so that we could acquire more property to be ready for prospect activity during COVID. And they support us with a $46 million bond issue. As we began bringing that property on our pipeline for projects was very active. We’re actually meeting with four or five different evey battery projects at the time, shortly after we were acquiring the property. And we narrowed down to our conversations with Envision. And in those conversations, we determined we needed to buy some additional property. And so we had to go back to the city and the county to get almost another $12 million of investment just to acquire the property we were going to need cite the project.
Brandon Burton 12:30
Because it was fun to go back and ask for more. Right.
Ron Bunch 12:34
They first thought we needed 25 million and ended up being 46 million, then we came back for another 12. So we have an amazing relationship that we’ve built over the years with our city and county government. So they knew the kind of return they would get. So even during COVID, when not many people were bringing the property to the market. We had their competence, and we were able to do that. So I mean, we could do probably a whole show on that that conversation how we got there. But those kind of numbers. But so now we’ve acquired the property, we’re in deep conversations with Envision, we finally put together the package to get him get them here. But in that we determined we needed around almost 60 million and infrastructure improvement. So we got with our lobbyist, and then we went directly to the legislature met with Senate and House convinced them for about $15 million dollars in road improvements. And around 43 46 million in water and sewer improvements that would position us to land the project. And through all that collaboration, we’re able to pull a project together now instead with the governor and everybody else on stage. And at that time, it became the second largest investment in the entire history of Kentucky, obviously, our largest investment in the history of laundry in Warren County. So 2 billion in 2000 jobs. And the other great news is that the way we’ve configured this site, there can be further growth. So it’s entirely possible this could be much bigger than it even is today.
Brandon Burton 14:17
So it’s great to be able to make an announcement of this big win of the financing, being able to come in the infrastructure, the improvements, the attraction of corporations coming. What is the timeline look like from when when that’s announced to you know, the hopefulness I guess, I’ve seen I don’t want to say completion, but maybe completion to this part of the vision because there’s that room to grow and continue into the future. But what’s the timeline looking like from forget best estimates?
Ron Bunch 14:55
Excellent question. So I mean, we announced that around April of last year in April 22 and the 1.6 million square foot tad is developed, steel is up skins going on building, there’ll be soon delivering equipment will have on offer somewhere around 300 individuals that come here from another country to help install the equipment. So by, you know, the December timeframe, they ought to have equipment set and be well along in their hiring so is a very fast moving project. And that’s, you know, one of the things that we’ve prided ourselves on being able to move quickly from announcement implementation, which helped us win that project.
Brandon Burton 15:40
Yeah. So what are some of the maybe the, let’s say, the coattails of the project, or some of the maybe lagging indicators or, or secondary benefits of a big project like this coming? Like you mentioned, 300 employees from another country coming to help install it? I mean, that’s hotels and restaurants and everything else. What other impact are you seeing through this?
Ron Bunch 16:05
Yes, it’s a tremendous amount of activities on both of the things you’ve mentioned, you know, I’d say we probably have about 1000 contractors there. And then you have another 300 equipment, installers come in, you know, obviously, I’ve been there, you know, a little over a year now. And so the overall impact and all the shopping all the businesses happening at our local companies, food trucks that are coming out, you know, just a tremendous amount of chamber activity and other spillover benefits and multiplier effects. But then on the other side, this industry needs a whole supply chain with it. So we’ve been courting a number of other companies that would be in our market, in order to supply and interact with this particular major project. That’s awesome,
Brandon Burton 16:53
that it’s one of those things that every community dreams of having that that big, you know, economic windfall, so to speak, of having all the jobs the, you know, the infrastructure, everything that comes along with it is such a great thing for the community. And I guess in in our audience, yeah, who people were talking to and see it that way. Have you had any kind of pushback from anybody in the community of you know, we don’t need this kind of thing? And did and how do you address any any negativity that may come with it?
Ron Bunch 17:26
That’s an excellent question. So we also run what we call the plant managers roundtable. So I do our existing business calls myself, and we host that plant manager roundtable every two months. And with that kind of ramping up of manufacturing, hiring alone, there has been some concern among other companies and being able to find talent, because, you know, in the US right, now, you’ve got to open jobs for every individual position. And so that’s been, you know, a thing we’ve had to navigate through, and helping them understand. Because many of our companies that have been here a long time, are as aware of how we build a custom talent sourcing strategy. And so it’s given us an opportunity to go back with them and help walk them through all the different pieces and parts we’ve put together to help them find and develop talent. And so it’s led to a lot of good conversations. We really haven’t had any other pushback on the other than how do we help our existing companies retain their talent and find new talent. And, you know, through some convening we’ve done our city and county are vested in about a quarter million annually, and a talent recruitment campaign that’s been ongoing for two years now. And so we’ve got many of the parts put together. It’s just growing on that success now as what we’re working on.
Brandon Burton 18:43
Yeah, that is great. Because there’s usually those those NIMBY people, right that don’t right in their backyard, and, and it sounds like those relationships have been built. And in the timings, right, everything is just developed at a rate, you know, the right cadence for this 10 fold the way it has, so congratulate,
Ron Bunch 19:00
are really excited about it, too, because we’re, we’re about 18% manufacturing in our economy, that’s, you know, at least twice the national average. So manufacturing has really embraced here, and quite a bit of that as automotive related with Corvette being located here, Holly being headquartered here, and, and other suppliers. And so having this new generation of propulsion for vehicles here in our community was something that was very welcomed.
Brandon Burton 19:29
Yeah, that’s awesome. So I would imagine that some of that workforce kind of plays in well to your STS SC K launch program as well, if I’m not mistaken. Do you want to gears over into that and tell us maybe how the two are related?
Ron Bunch 19:47
Absolutely. And actually, SEK launch. That program was instrumental in us winning this project. So it was something they cited compared to other states that made a difference in their decision to come here and That program has been great for a number of years now, we’ve actually had a hiring event, I think for four or five years now a high school hiring event. And this year, it was phenomenal. So many direct hires right out of high school. We also started a kind of somewhat related, heavy equipment program over the last year. And those first students got hired. And we had 23 students in the initial class, and every one of them got hired, we had a signing event that was extraordinary. So SEK launch has been just instrumental and all that we’re doing in the community. And really, it’s given us a different brand image in the community, because of the amount of investment and how long and how deeply we’ve been engaged with the education, infrastructure, our community, we’ve been doing, you know, making investments, I’m working on SDK launch for about 11 years now. And I’ve been here a little over 13. So it’s been awesome. Our other summary related to just a portion of that. So SDK launches really detailed, go to career program that is all day every day in every school, K through 12, in Bowling Green, and Warren County. But the one we chose to focus on was the eighth grade portion. Okay. And so with the eighth grade portion, we’ve actually hired a curriculum developer some years ago, and who came from education help us build out modules for every core sector of our economy. So we run the data on what jobs are open every month. And we use that to inform how we look at our sectors. And so she’s developed a curriculum that’s shared with not just every eighth grader in Bowling Green, and Warren County, but every eighth grader in our whole labor market. So for the first time ever, when eighth graders get assessed on their interests, and aptitudes, every eighth grader and our regional labor market, we’ll learn about careers and manufacturing careers and healthcare careers and business professional services. And then they’ll come to what this year was a two day, hands on career fair. We’ve had so many students, we had to extend it to another day. So now we have two full days. We had about 35 30/608 graders go through the event. 45 businesses, hundreds of volunteer, so it’s a big event. And just the excitement around it is is amazing. As you see eighth graders, explore a career and then see that light turned on, they get excited about a job in a career that they never even knew existed.
Brandon Burton 22:48
Yeah. So I know a lot of eighth graders out there have no clue what they want to know what a high schoolers until they get into the later part of their senior year, and reality is hitting them in the face. And they’re needing to start making some decisions. Right? So how does that with the focus on the eighth graders? Had you talked about the aptitude test and everything? But what what sort of things are playing into this to really help them catch a glimpse of what their future could look like? And what direction they’d want to go?
Ron Bunch 23:19
Yeah, I mean, the curriculum for each sector is crucial. So we are looking at, you know, how many open jobs whether they pay, what’s the pathway, you know, what positions can you get into with just a certificate, so really maps all that out for me really well. So that’s their first glimpse into really how broad the economy is, as well as the educators teaching it. And so that prepares them for what they then see. And we broken the experience up into different worlds. So there’s a world that we would call it for each of the sectors, and then that you’d have equipment and employers and so like in the healthcare sector, every eighth grader in our labor market would be able to come in and see robotic surgical unit, and, and interact with it. And so it’s that kind of hands on, they get to see law enforcement and, you know, get into the vehicle and check that stuff out. So it’s it’s very hands on, and we create a competition among the sectors where the students would get to vote, which sector they liked best. So it creates a kind of competition among the companies each year to up their game. Things that are more and more engaging for the eighth graders, because again, we want them to be excited about what they can go to and we want to create more of a poll. And then those eighth graders after they do that, they begin selecting their career pathway for the whole high school experience. And so if you have discovered, oh, wow, I really think I want to be in healthcare, then you get in that career pathway starting in ninth grade. And we’ve invested in for example, having an ambulance in the classroom and so you’re taught On the actual equipment that you will see in the field, through your high school career at your home high school. And so that’s the second part of the money we’re gonna raise beyond the 2.6 million is to put more and more of those hands on Career Exploration things in each high school.
Brandon Burton 25:17
That is awesome. And just to be able to get that that hands on experience, like, you know, how often do you hear somebody who is committed, and they decided to go to law school, maybe and then they get into for a year of practicing law and realize they hate law. Right. And they never spent any time in a law office before they got, you know, hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt. And now they’re, they’re committed. So providing some experience when they’re young, I think is so valuable.
Ron Bunch 25:43
And I think we can all relate, you know, if you’re doing something, you have an interest and an aptitude to do, you’re going to enjoy it more. We’ve all had to do some things that maybe didn’t fit her interests and aptitudes and our careers as professional, but to find out in eighth grade, sort of how you’re wired and then be had that opened up to you at that point. And then we do I mean, you touch on that other part, we do an externship program. So we take educators into business to inform them more so that they can reach the students and help them know. But we also do a hands on career exploration for the high schoolers. So we seek to and have every high school or be in a business engagement, career exploration, in addition to the what they’re gonna get in the classroom, so they’re physically in a business during their high school career.
Brandon Burton 26:38
So I guess a question that comes up for myself is as they go along this career exploration, if at some point, they realize this really is not what I want to do, right, are they able to make that shift and somehow within the program, kind of realign with their values, and their division is awesome. Yeah, that’s
Ron Bunch 26:54
the great part about it. We’ve, through our engagement with the schools, in addition to guidance counselor’s our school that prioritize and put in place career counselors are so much better to learn during high school when it’s not going to cost you anything to switch career pathways. Yeah. And so they they’re able to work with their schools and take the lessons they have the in the credits they have gained, and then shifted over into another pathway that can get them to graduation.
Brandon Burton 27:21
All right, that’s great. Well, right, as we begin to wrap things up here, obviously, you guys are making a huge impact in your community. And that’s what what every chamber should be doing. But I wanted to see for for those listening, who are interested in taking their chamber up to the next level, what tips or action items might you have to offer to help them accomplish that?
Ron Bunch 27:45
Yes. Now, when I read the Horizon Report, I think the focus on catalytic leadership is really that the thing while it may be risk, to be out front, and actually lead change that your community needs, and then finding a way for it to connect with your business plan, we’ve found that when we take that role, which we do quite a bit, in a lot of different activities, it’s really paid dividends for our community. And it’s changed the way the committee looks at the chamber and looks to the chamber. And then we’ve been able to find ways to make that work for us financially to so that we can have a growing prospering organization, and it’s, for me, personally, it’s very rewarding to be able to do those kinds of things to do things that have not yet been created that do in fact, solve a problem for groups of people and groups of businesses.
Brandon Burton 28:43
Step in there and be a leader for change for sure. How to use as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Ron Bunch 28:55
I think the core of what we just talked about is that the you know, for us the thing we’ve started using, because I wanted to have more of a specific approach for both chamber activities and non development activities. We use spin situation problem. And so when you interact with GE with each investor, and you’re really probing to understand, what drives your business, what do you need? What keeps you up at night? What things can we help solve, when you do it on an individual basis annually, and then you begin to aggregate those things. It’ll point out some opportunities for you. And so I think the more we do those sorts of things with our business communities in our area, then you apply that catalytic leadership to bring things to market that haven’t existed before. I think there’ll be a natural evolution to chambers and what we deliver how we look at programs and events, and that sort of thing, and it’s changed with us to our programs and events are shifting. The affinity program that we bring on are shifting and we’re getting More and more value to the investor so that they get a good return. So it’s it’s increased engagement, and it’s decreased appreciation because they know they’re gonna get something back in relation to what they’re investing in. They know that we’re going to be responsive.
Brandon Burton 30:14
Right? I think that I think that’s great. Ron, I wanted to to give you an opportunity to share any contact information for listeners who may want to learn more about the things you guys do in there and the bowling green area Chamber or anything else you touched on today, what would be the best way for someone to reach out and connect?
Ron Bunch 30:36
They’re sure the either myself or my executive vice president Meredith Rozanski. It will be ron@bgchamber.com or meredith@bgchamber.com. Anything that anybody liked to discuss that would help their organization we’d love to engage with them. So just shoot us an email. Our main line is 270-781-3200 if you want to call us, we love engaging. We’ve got some upcoming visits by other communities to look at different facets of what we’re doing here.
Brandon Burton 31:11
I’m sure you do. I’m sure that’s a you’d be a great location for a leadership trip, for sure.
Ron Bunch 31:17
Pretty nice, too. We got some Corvettes here and you can get on a track and make sure you don’t forget the visit. That’s right.
Brandon Burton 31:25
Well, Ron, I appreciate that. We’ll get your contact information in our show notes for this episode. But one I wish you and your team best of luck with chamber the year and congratulate you for all the great work that you guys were doing and really making an impact in your community. So appreciate all that.
Ron Bunch 31:42
Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing all these things so that we can all benefit from one another.
Brandon Burton 31:47
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