COY Finalist 2019-Ocala/Marion County Chamber & Economic Partnership with Kevin Sheilley

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability and to correct obvious transcription errors while preserving the meaning of the original conversation.

Episode 29 — Ocala/Marion County Chamber & Economic Partnership 2019 Chamber of the Year Finalist with Kevin Sheilley
Clean Speaker-Labeled Transcript
Guest: Kevin Sheilley
Automated QA: Passed

00:00.226 Brandon Burton
This is a special edition of Chamber Chat Podcast as I begin a series of interviewing the finalist for Chamber of the Year for 2019. I hope you enjoyed this series, but first, the intro. 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.
00:29.89 Brandon Burton
We are back today for our sixth interview in our special series of the 2019 ACCE Chamber of the Year finalists. This is episode 29 of Chamber Chat Podcast, and I'm Brandon Burton. It is my goal to introduce you to people and ideas so you can better serve your Chamber members and your community. If you are new to Chamber Chat Podcast, please visit Chamberchat Podcast.com/slash start. To learn a little bit more about what you can expect from the show and you can receive some valuable tips for some non-dues revenue ideas that you can use at your chamber. Again, that's ChamberThatpodcast.com/slash start. And before we jump into the show today, let's take a quick moment and hear about the sponsor for this episode. Chambers are not considered for chamber of the year without having great programs and steady streams of non-dues revenue. I want to introduce you to a great affinity program. From Swipe It. In partnership with Chamber Chat Podcast, Swipe It is one of the best credit card processors in the business. With the Swipe It Affinity program, you can save up to 40% on your credit card processing fees at the Chamber and help your member partners to do the same. Chambers who take advantage of the Swipe It Affinity program can add thousands of dollars to their non-dues revenue annually. Please visit Chamberchatpodcast.com slash CC for more information and to request your complimentary cost savings analysis from the experts at Swipeit. The first twenty chambers to respond will qualify for free equipment to get set up. Again, visit chamberchatpodcast.com slash C C to start swiping with Swipe It. All right, our guest today is Kevin Sheeley. From the Ocala, Marion County Chamber and Economic Partnership in Florida. Or for purposes of this interview, that we'll call it the CEP. Kevin is the president and CEO of the Ocalab, Marion County Chamber and Economic Partnership, the community's primary chamber and economic development organization. He is a career chamber/slash economic development.
02:48.962 Brandon Burton
professional and has spoken across the country on issues relating to economic and community development. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Excellence and Economic Development Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce. The CEP is the current Florida Chamber of the Year and is a finalist for ACCE's National Chamber of the Year for the second time in three years. 2019 marks Kevin's 25th year in the Chamber and Economic Development Field. Prior to coming to Ocala, Kevin had worked in economic development in Kentucky and Tennessee. The CEP represents the fourth time he's successfully assisted communities in merging or creating new economic development entities. Kevin is originally from Louisville, Kentucky, and is a graduate of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He and his wife Lisa. are the parents of three children. Kevin, please say hello to the chamber chat audience and share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little bit better.
03:57.27 Kevin Sheilley
Excellent. Well good morning or good day. It's good to be on with everyone. wow, that was a really long bio. I'm sorry that you had to read all of that, but I appreciate it.
04:07.466 Brandon Burton
It doesn't look so long on paper, so
04:09.862 Kevin Sheilley
Exactly. I something interesting. You know, we talk about within Chamber World standing out, and that gets to be a little bit easier for me in that I am six foot six. So I tend to stand out in a crowd. But the interesting part of that is I am a twin. I am six foot six and my twin is five foot five. So if you ever saw the movie twins,
04:33.407 Brandon Burton
Really?
04:38.624 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Schwarzenegger, right?
04:39.308 Kevin Sheilley
Yeah, yeah, my my twin sister hates that movie in that intro. And she will not be happy if she hears that I made that illustration. But but that's I was quite a bit larger at birth and have always been quite the the big one.
04:57.752 Brandon Burton
Wow. That is interesting. I wouldn't have ever guessed that. Well, can you share with us a little bit about the size of the C E P so we can all relate a little bit better to to where you're at and your chamber and all everything you've got going on.
05:13.176 Kevin Sheilley
Sure. the CEP, we have just over fifteen hundred partners. we don't call them members, we call them partners. I think when I looked earlier today, we're at the 1523, 1524 level. our our total budget is about 2.3 million, and we serve a we are the Chamber and Economic Development Organization for our community, and we serve a community of about 360,000.
05:41.304 Brandon Burton
Wow, that's that's a good sized community. So as I mentioned in the bio, as we as we read through that, this is the second time in three years that CEP is being put up as a finalist for ACC's Chamber of the Year. So what are you doing there that besides being six foot six to to stand out amongst chambers to be considered for this award?
06:07.618 Kevin Sheilley
You know, I I think the advantage that we've had, and and I think it's the reason that we're a finalist again for ACCE and the reason we won Florida Chamber of the Year last year, is we had the great advantage. In in 2011, 2012, our community really went through some some serious soul searching about what what does it mean to be a chamber? What does economic development look like? What does our community need? What's the role of the business community? and that really led to what was the merger of the Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Council. And you know, throughout the Southeast, it's not unusual to find that EDCs and Chamber coming together, splitting apart, coming together. Almost every EDC at one point grew out of a chamber. But this was a unique merger. And they in my mind, they really did it the right way. And I was pleased to be a to have been a bit a part of it. In that they said, look, we're not going to take two things, screw them together, but keep them separate. We're really going to blow all this up. If we're going to do this, let's do it right. What what does a chamber, what does economic development need to look like at this point in 2013? What what does that need to be? And so it's really been a chance to kind of reimagine what our organization was going to be and do and how we operate. it's interesting to me, and you know, we all spend a lot of time. I'm hopefully looking at the Horizons twenty twenty five document. And while that was not a a document that the board here, the the the leadership looked at, they weren't even familiar with it at the time, it's really interesting that a lot of those points, those influencers, you can really see implemented in how the CEP has been organized and and how we operate. And so I think it's really about for us, one of our our key purposes is to be a vision, a model of excellence for what a twenty first century chamber should be and do. And I think that's part of the reason it's allowed us to really stand down.
08:10.754 Brandon Burton
That's right. So what are some of the programs that you guys have going on that you're, you know, take some pride in that that you'd like to share with us?
08:20.76 Kevin Sheilley
Sure. Well, there are couple of things. You know, I think one, and it's it's one of the things we've submitted in our application, one of our our synopsis programs, is in relation to a a key cluster industry here for us. people may not be aware unless they're in the horse industry, but Ocala is the horse capital of the world. and I'm originally from Kentucky and my friends in Kentucky don't like when I say it. there is not only some some data behind it, but there's actually a court case. that determined that yes, Ocala is the horse capital of the world. We have more horses than any other county in the United States, actually, more than the next two counties combined. and we have more variety of horses than not only any place in the US, but probably more than any place in the world. There's only four other places that rival it. we have over 60 breeds of horses. So But but so we're the horse capital of the world. One of the things we did here is, but what does that really mean? how how does that contribute to the business community? How does that impact us? We commissioned an economic impact analysis. And just on our community, equine contributes $2.6 billion with the BE dollars a year to our local economy. That yeah, that really caused, I think everyone calls the horse community to stop and go, wait a minute. Really? it caused our elected officials to all stop. And and it costs the business community to stop. And so as we looked at this, look, if it's this important of a cluster, that this important to our community, we need to work and have someone dedicated to engaging this community. So we began an our Equine Engagement Initiative. I have a fantastic lady on my staff, Louisa Barton, who her sole job is to work to engage the equine community so that they are better enable to work together and improving the town and farm com relationship and really creating additional opportunities for business and for growth and it's really been phenomenal in the two years that we've had the program to see the impact in bringing together and engaging the equine and because while they're farms they're also businesses and making sure that they're engaged with the the business community as a whole and so that's a really unique aspect of what we do here.
10:45.536 Kevin Sheilley
To my knowledge, the only only chamber in the country that has an equine engagement initiative.
10:50.698 Brandon Burton
Yeah, that's fascinating. What what is it about Marion County that draws the all the horses, all the the horse people to to Marion County?
10:59.298 Kevin Sheilley
So there's a couple of things. One, just like my home state of Kentucky, here we have a limestone underlay. And so limestone is really important for horses. as the the rain and as the dew seeps down into the ground, the all the minerals in that limestone then get soaked up and come back up through the grass that the horse eats. and that's fantastic for their bones. It really strengthens their legs. and so that's why you find Whenever you find that limestone underlay around the globe, you'll find in particular thoroughbreds, but but horses in general. And then of course our our fantastic climate. that you know, we we don't have harsh winters, we don't have winter much at all. And so you know, what happens on the thoroughbred side is that many times almost all of the the top thoroughbreds are are bred in Kentucky, few are b bred here in Florida, but most are bred in Kentucky. But then when they're 10 days old, they're immediately shipped to Ocala to learn how to be a racehorse. Cause they tend to be born in January, February, March. not necessarily the best time to be outside in Kentucky or in New York or some of the other s thoroughbred states. And so they all come here. so it's not unusual in a typical Kentucky Derby, for example, the twenty horses this year, 17 of them had ties to Ocala.
12:20.16 Brandon Burton
Wow. That is pretty neat. So and I'm always fascinated. Yeah, I'd I'd mentioned to you before we got on that the actual interview here that the part of Texas I'm from is considered horse country is kind of the the the name of of Aubrey. And I never have really fully understood where the money is in the hor I mean it seems like an expensive hobby to me, but where where do you see it in your in your area there in Marion County and Ocala? How does it work? How does the business the the horse business work?
12:53.73 Kevin Sheilley
So there's there's a couple different aspects, but first I have to tell you, you know, there's a great story. Do you know how to make a small fortune in horses? Start with a large fortune. Start but you know, it's I mean we have the farms which are important and whether they're they're thoroughbred, we're you know, Florida in in a particular we're number two in thoroughbreds, we're number one in Clydesdales, we're number one in Pasafinos, we're number one in a whole variety, or number two in Arabian. So all these these breeds.
13:02.784 Brandon Burton
That's right.
13:23.128 Kevin Sheilley
So there's that aspect of the the breeding of the horses, the training. we have tremendous again on the thoroughbred side, a tremendous number of facilities here for training racehorses on the thoroughbred, but also some of the most well known horse trainers who crossbreeds can be found here. Pirelli, for example, who has an international reputation, has moved off his operations to Ocala. But then the other aspect of what makes us unique is we have these significant kind of business aspects. So the thoroughbred breeder sales, which are where five times a year we have thoroughbred auctions. the top two-year-old in training sale is here, and so you have buyers who come literally from around the globe for a week or two buying thoroughbreds, and and and it's fascinating when we look at the numbers. their average daily spend, these are business tourists. the average daily spend for these groups is nearly three thousand dollars a day. And that's nothing equine. That's food, hotel, spending. I mean these are high dollar, the kind of folks you want coming into your community to s to spend money. And and then we have all of the this huge aspect of of equine, which now is really growing. It's all the competitions and whether that is an inventor. whether it is dressage, whether it's something that's huge here, foreign hand, whether it's barrel racers, western style, we have a number of facilities that that attract and bring in competitors who who come in. And so a lot of them will train here. We have two Olympic equine teams who train here, sometimes as many as three or four, but we have a lot of international competitions that come in in in all these different competition areas. So that's become a huge piece. And for us coming up in in in 2021 in January, the largest equine competition facility in the world will be opening here, the World Equestrian Center, which is a $400 million private development equine competition facility. Half a million square feet under roof, air conditioned, 10,000 seat outdoor arena, 17 other arenas, 2,500 permanent bar installs.
15:41.358 Kevin Sheilley
We really see this equine just continuing to grow and expand.
15:46.766 Brandon Burton
Some of these horses get better taken care of than some people. Yeah.
15:50.046 Kevin Sheilley
It's phenomenal. We go through the the the barns are being built at the World Equestrian Center and they're all air conditioned and heated. the horse never has unless they're competing outside will be in air conditioning the whole time. I mean they have special beds basically in the stalls, special feeding systems, special showers and baths, and it talks about all the things coming in. I mean it's it's it it's unbelievable.
16:15.384 Brandon Burton
So I I love how your chamber really grasped onto that, you know, if you notice the big economic driver of the equine equine, you know, community and be being able to kind of latch onto that and help drive that. it's a great example for for any chamber really to see what it is in your community that really is a a driving force economically and get behind it and push it.
16:38.636 Kevin Sheilley
Absolutely. And and you know, for us, I mean it's it's important, it's an important economic driver. It's also helped us to engage a lot of businesses who otherwise didn't even think about being involved with the chamber. And and so that's really been a great partnership across the way in everything that we do.
16:55.67 Brandon Burton
That's right. So what so that's one of the programs in your synopsis. What what is the other program that you guys submitted?
17:03.522 Kevin Sheilley
Yeah. The other program we submitted is what we call Nextworks, which is our talent development initiative. we have a great program where we're engaged in engaging the business community to partner with our school system and with in particular our two higher ed providers, Marion Tanical College and College of Central Florida, to really make sure that we're refocusing on skills based education and creating seamless pipelines and and career ladders from high school. We're getting ready to start going back down to middle school all the way through bachelor's degrees and really creating a series of programs where a student is when they graduate from high school, they actually have skills and they're ready to go to work. In many cases, with our career choice academies that we've worked to set up in each of our seven high schools, those students actually already have an associate's degree or nearly have an associate's degree with the College of Central Florida. But they're also set up in these seamless career ladders so that they can come in and out and get additional training in those areas that go towards their bachelor's degree, so that they're never backtracking, but really continually advancing. And all of our career choice academies and our pipeline programs align with identified needs of our business community based both on our recruiting targets here at the CEP and our high demand occupations from our career source, our employment services agents. So all of our entities are working together to really advance a skills-based education that runs from middle school all the way through college.
18:44.578 Brandon Burton
So what kind of I guess data were you looking at to to come up with this next works initiative? What what were you seeing in the workforce or education to to make you decide to go this route?
18:57.314 Kevin Sheilley
You know, several pieces. I mean part of it here at the CP, we are the the economic development organization. It's fully integrated into everything we do and and both on our business attraction and our business retention efforts, you know, it was consistently seeing, you know, we're not it's not now of course for everywhere it's difficult to hire additional employees, but you know, making sure people had the skills, companies wanting to pay more, but then employees not having the skills they needed. And and one of my personal areas is and there's tremendous amount of data out there. You know, for 40 years we told every student in our country that the key to success was to go get a university degree. Didn't matter what it was in. You just get that piece of paper and you're going to be successful. And, you know, now we're really starting to look at that angle, man, that that really wasn't the right thing. We we sold a lot of students a bill of goods that we're not able to deliver on. And and it's hurt our workforce, it's hurt our employers. And it it's really holding back people because they have debt and a degree in an area where they don't have interest or passion and and they're not really able to move in the direction they want to. And so making sure for us, we really focus on what we call the three E's. And that means that when a student graduates from our schools, they're ready for employment, they're ready for enlistment, or they're ready to enroll in higher education, and that we treat all three of those with the equal amount of attention and and focus. But obviously for us as a business organization, as much as we could bring the business community in and keep them engaged, not just a one-time, hey, here's something we need, schools go provide it, but an ongoing partnership. And I tell you what I think is most fascinating is that we have this incredible ongoing working partnership between school system and higher ed, where everyone is really about what's in the best interest and how do we work together and how do we make this happen. And okay, this isn't This isn't as good for me financially, but it's really in the best interest of our community. So here's what we're going to go do. and so it's got a whole series of initiatives that are involved. one of the neatest programs is we ask students in our career choice academies, and those are areas like logistics, automation, robotics, IT, Power Academy. But what is what do you want? What do you want as students? And interestingly, and this is a perfect fit for us as a chamber.
21:19.18 Kevin Sheilley
Is I said, you know, we really want to network with professionals in these fields that we're studying. So, well, man, we can we can help, we can do that. We created a program called Nextworking. just kind of made it up as we went, but it was tremendously successful. we did 12 sessions last year, each targeted. So we did one on logistics, one on health occupations, and and went down the line. We bring in 40 students from those areas. We'd bring in a dozen business leaders in those targeted areas. And it was phenomenal. We we do a quick session teaching them the students how to network. And then we did some speed networking. You know, we'd put four or five students at a table and two adults. And for five minutes, they would they would talk and and share information and then the buzzer and then they the adults would rotate tables till they everyone had a chance to meet. Out of every single session, we had students who came out with internships. Part-time jobs. We had s at the end, we had students getting lined up for full-time jobs for graduation. businesses who were really excited, who are ready to get more engaged in what we were doing in those areas. So it was it was a win-win all the way around. and and again, just responding to the needs of both our students and our businesses.
22:37.76 Brandon Burton
Yeah, I love that. So as you were explaining how that program works, I was wondering, you know, oftentimes parents try to live their unfulfilled dreams through their children. Has there been any pushback from parents when it's presented that maybe you know enrolling in higher higher education isn't what your kid wants to do, but maybe they want to get employed right out of school or enlist. Do you do you get any kind of pushback from the parents saying that's not what we had envisioned for our child?
23:10.744 Kevin Sheilley
You know, we've actually gotten very little. In in part because we make a distinction between there's a difference between college and university. not every student needs to go to the University of Florida. Probably most of our students need at least some additional credential beyond high school, and that's the College of Central Florida or Marion Technical College. Yeah. helping to to define that, that to say maybe and also be able to say, look, maybe you need to work for a while, maybe you need to be in this area before you figure out exactly that next direction. you know, I not only has it been extremely well received, we the CEP actually led an initiative and helped to secure an an ad a referendum for our school system that fund all of our career technical education. we did that last fall and and we received 73% of the voters approved it. We want every precinct but one in the community to raise an additional twenty million dollars a year for our schools just for career technical education. So I think there's tremendous buy in. I think that the people really are starting to understand the importance of of skills and that there's a difference between university and college.
24:19.402 Brandon Burton
So I think that's a great point. And I like the idea of of these students being able to get some type of work experience to see if they even like the field that they're considering going into before they go take out a ton of debt going to university. Let's let's test it out, see if it's something you're even interested in once you get into it. I've heard too many stories of people going to law school and then they, you know, go and pass the bar, get hired on at some firm and they just absolutely hate it. But they're, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt.
24:48.376 Kevin Sheilley
And and you think about the opportunity cost. I mean, that's seven years of school. so those all those pieces come into play. So, you know, we we want and need, you know, we have huge nursing is a tremendous need here. Engineers, I need engineers. And so those are all important and we encourage those areas as well. But but let's make sure every person has the opportunity to be the best who they can be.
25:11.17 Brandon Burton
Yeah, and I wonder just even maybe on a national level, what kind of sunk costs are involved there when somebody feels like, you know, I had seven years invested, I've got all this debt. I hate being an attorney, but that's what I signed up to do. So I'm doing this. And then it stifles innovation or it stifles, you know, other creativity that could help, you know, in local communities or together in the nation. So I think this is a
25:35.374 Kevin Sheilley
Some some great data I was just looking at talking about that as Americans we're moving less than we ever have. And and I think part of that is because people are are so many times stuck with with debt and some other things that they simply from school they don't feel like they can. and so I think that, you know, I think it has some some pretty significant impacts on our economy.
25:55.862 Brandon Burton
I can't argue with that. Well, Kevin, I wanted to ask, just based on what you've got going there at C E P and some of the things you've discussed today, can you kind of condense down to maybe one action item that listeners can do at their chamber to step up their game and to kind of take their chamber to the next level?
26:18.36 Kevin Sheilley
You know, I I would say and there and I love what we do here. We've got incredible leadership, doing some really neat things. I would say it's o two things. And yeah, I you actually want to give you two. One, it's okay to barbecue some sacred cows. Yeah. it's time to probably those programs, those initiatives that really don't meet your mission, it's time to go ahead and and have a barbecue and just be done with those.
26:35.096 Brandon Burton
Great.
26:46.988 Kevin Sheilley
We so many chambers get stuck doing things that really aren't advancing their mission and lead and certainly staff leadership knows it. It's just getting the volunteer leadership to understand it. and the other thing I'd say is it's okay to get outside the box. I mean, probably one of the most interesting things about our chamber is we don't have any committees. All right. We don't do committees. because what we've learned is in 2019, who wants to serve on a committee? you know, we we ha work a different model, but it's it's okay to change. It's okay to be different and you can grow and be successful. In particular, know your you know your community. So what do you need to to change to go be successful?
27:28.615 Brandon Burton
So you've got me intrigued then. If you don't have committees, what does that different model look like?
27:34.574 Kevin Sheilley
You know, we believe, we talk a lot, and and and we're very clear, it and it's more than just words for us. we don't have any members. we have fifteen hundred and twenty something partners. when you're a business, you're making an investment. you're making investment in the CP, you expect return on investment. If this is if you're looking for something to be a member of, there's lots of civic clubs and country clubs and other things you can be a member of. You're making an investment looking for a return. And you should expect that. And how are you going to earn that return if if we're asking you to go do the work? and so and one of our our favorite sayings that had a chairman who used to say this: a committee is a great way to do half the work and twice the time. So we focus on how do we provide that return. And so we have a professional staff that's out implementing initiatives and programs that drive that return. We'll engage people. in these programs and initiatives, for example, like Nixworks, but it's not a committee. there's not gonna be a set meeting schedule, there's not gonna be you know, assignments made for them to do things. This is really about us providing that return on investment. in turn, for most of what we do at the CEP, there's not a fee. you you you make your partnership investment and we're on a tiered tiered structure. And for the most part, you don't pay anything else to attend, participate, to be a part. You're earning that return. And by attending a CP program event or initiative, you're either meeting new customers or new suppliers or new partners to help you grow your business. You're learning new ways to be more successful to grow your business, or but through your investment, our community is growing, our economy is growing, and as a result, your business is growing. And that's been a, you know, for us, I have to say it's been a very successful model.
29:28.094 Brandon Burton
It all makes sense to me. I like matching up people that it can benefit their own business and see that that return on their investment with the chamber to be able to help out with these different programs. It it makes perfect sense.
29:41.482 Kevin Sheilley
And and for us, I mean, and it's it's one of those key conversations for many chambers, when and using that that language and that approach, we that helps businesses get out of the this isn't coming out of my terrible contributions, this is coming out of my marketing budget. and that allows us to to help move partners up on that partnership tier.
30:01.934 Brandon Burton
Perfect. So Kevin, as we kind of wrap things up here, I've asked this question to everybody have on the show, but we'd like to to ask as we as we look to the future, how do you view chambers of commerce and their purpose?
30:16.92 Kevin Sheilley
You know, I I think I'm gonna quote something from the Horizons plan and and that is f I really see chambers becoming and being the same center. you know, with so much polarization on in politics throughout our our communities and our country, and even little issues in communities sometimes becoming polarizing. I think the chamber being able to be that same center, to be able to to lead discussions, to, to move initiatives. and keep our communities moving forward and be able to address things from a very logical business approach, I think really is key. And I think there's no organization who can serve that role better than a chamber. And so I really think that's where we're gonna see more and more chambers and where we're gonna be successful.
31:06.734 Brandon Burton
I think that's good advice. Gives good focus for Chambers to to strive to be that sane center.
31:12.974 Kevin Sheilley
Absolutely. I hope so I think so anyway.
31:15.436 Brandon Burton
Yeah. Well, Kevin, I wanted to thank you for spending time with us today here on Chamber Chat Podcast. And I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in and listening. The show notes for this episode can be found at Chamberchat Podcast dot com slash episode twenty nine. But Kevin, where can listeners connect with you if they have any questions about what was discussed today or how you're doing things at your chamber?
31:38.318 Kevin Sheilley
Absolutely. Of course, we'd encourage everyone to check out our website at OKla CEP dot com or on our Facebook page. And you can find us the same and love. You can find all the contact information there and be happy to to talk to anyone. Or if they are going to be at ACCE next week, love to to catch up there. I'm easy to find. Again, look for the really tall guy.
31:58.44 Brandon Burton
That's right. He stands out. That's great. That's perfect, Kevin. Again, thank you for being with us today and best of luck to you with your with the Chamber of the Year. Excellent.
32:12.622 Brandon Burton
Thank you for listening to this episode today. I hope that you're finding value as you listen to Chamber Chat Podcast. If you are enjoying the show, I would encourage you to tell your colleagues that are in the chamber industry. Also, please hop onto iTunes and leave us a five-star rating and review to help others find this show. Thanks again and I look forward to chatting with you again next week.