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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.
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Our guest for this episode is Michael Guymon and native tucsonan The new word for me. Michael’s 25 year professional career has primarily centered on political strategy, business development and advocacy and organizational management. As president and CEO for the Tucson Metro Chamber, Michael is responsible for developing and implementing the goals and vision for the chamber to fulfill the Chamber’s mission and champion and to champion an environment where your business thrives and our community prospers. Michael’s previous positions include vice president of regional partnerships for sun corridor Inc, the executive director of Metropolitan Pima Alliance, chief to staff to Tucson city council member Fred Ron Stan, Assistant Vice President for governmental affairs for the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and political consultant to the bridges, a 360 acre mixed use, mixed use infill development that includes tech parks Arizona, Geico regional headquarters, housing and 111 acre commercial development. Michael holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Arizona. On a personal note, his passion is baseball, and he was named the official score for the Tucson Padres triple A baseball club from 2011 to 2013 the team moved to El Paso in in 2014 But Michael, I’m excited to have you with us today here on chamber chat podcast. I’d love to give you an opportunity to say hello to all the chamber champions who are out there listening, and to share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Michael Guymon 2:48
Yeah, absolutely. Brandon, thank you so much for that, that great introduction, and I’m happy to be here to talk to all of our team chamber champions that are out there. I guess one other little fun fact is, as much as my passion is baseball, I actually play ice hockey. So a lot of people ask me, Wow, a native tucsonan That plays ice hockey. How the heck did that happen? And when I was in college, my buddies and I were just kind of bored playing too much hockey on Sega, so we decided to buy some stick, a puck, and some roller blades, taught ourselves how to play, and that ultimately morphed into playing ice hockey. So So yeah, I am also an ice hockey player, and I still play in the adult league here in Tucson and and it’s a lot of fun. It keeps me, keeps me busy and and it helps me get, you know, some of that pent up nerve that some chamber CEOs can can experience out on the ice.
Brandon Burton 3:46
That’s right, that’s a I would not have guessed that, you know, baseball and hockey. I would not have guessed, you know, but yeah, that that’s awesome. Glad it keeps you active, keeps you involved,
Michael Guymon 3:56
absolutely.
Brandon Burton 3:58
Well, tell us a little bit about the Tucson Metro Chamber, just to kind of set the stage for our discussion today, give us an idea of the size of the chamber staff, budget, scope of work and all that, just to kind of give us your perspective.
Michael Guymon 4:10
Yeah, you bet. Thank you, Brandon. So our chamber has been around since 1896 and we have been the voice of business in a variety of forms for those 100 and now 28 years. So we are a staff of 11, budget of about 1.8 million, and we have 1400 members, and those members are everything from restaurants to Raytheon. Raytheon is our largest private employer here in the Tucson region. Aerospace and Defense is our biggest, not only employer, but also just from a economic impact part of the economy, our biggest player, between Raytheon, with its 14,000 employees and 200 companies that make up our airspace and defense. Sector here in in the Tucson region. So so that’s that’s a big component, but so are a lot of our small businesses here. And of course, the chamber is the main organization that helps to advocate and be the voice for those small businesses. So So it ranges, really good range, but that that’s kind of what makes up our chamber?
Brandon Burton 5:21
Very good. And I know Raytheon is a great company to have in your backyard there. We’ve got a campus probably about 15 miles from our house here in Texas, and they’re great employer and great community player and just a great one to have have on your team there in Tucson, absolutely well, as we try to hone in on what our focus for our conversation is going to be, today, we decided to focus our the majority of our discussion around advocacy, but more specifically, advocacy that bolsters the competitiveness of your community. And we’ll dive in much deeper on this topic as soon as we get back from this quick break.
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All right, Michael, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break, we’re talking about how advocacy can bolster your community’s competitiveness as we take that approach, what does that mean to you as far as advocacy and keeping the maybe the relevance in your community and staying on the cutting edge? Just tell us what that means from you and your approach to advocacy in this with this focus. Sure.
Michael Guymon 8:19
So you know, advocacy really is it really is our main value proposition for the chamber. We, as I mentioned before, we are the voice of business, and part of being the voice of business is making sure that we are that bold advocate for a lot of things that relate to the business community and really try to push pro business policies through our city and county, and actually, when I became CEO of the chamber about three years ago, I shifted our focus to purely local, local advocacy, because we did have staff member, various staff members who would go up to Phoenix to lobby positions at the legislature. But I felt it was there. There’s plenty of work to do within the city of Tucson and Pima County that we really needed to focus our efforts locally and address the pro business policies that would help bolster our business community here locally and partner with those organizations like the greater Phoenix chamber and the Arizona chamber that has a stronger presence of the Capitol. And if there are ways that we can, that we can partner with them on state legislation that addresses pro business policy, then we’ll do that. But the chamber is really going to take the lead here locally and and we’ve been very successful at doing that. So, so when it comes to competitiveness now, it really dry there, there are, there are main components to that. Competitiveness. It it comes down to workforce and talent. It comes down to transportation and. Infrastructure comes down to public safety, comes down to housing affordability and quality of life. Those are, those are the five sort of pillars that we look at when we are talking about our competitiveness. As a former employee of our economic development organization, the big thing that I learned there is that talent and workforce and labor drives 99% of the relocation expansion decisions, and it also helps drive whether companies decide to stay within a community so as the retainer of business now at the Chamber I when I was at our economic development organization. I was it was my job to help companies expand to relocate to Tucson now at the Chamber, it’s my job to make sure that they stay here. Talent drives a lot of those decisions, and so working on workforce development and making sure that our educational institutions, our post secondary educational institutions and our K 12 system, quite frankly, are laddering up to the skills and positions that are needed within our companies. Is critically important to make sure that those connections are made. So we do a lot of that work. We have collaboratives in healthcare. We have collaboratives in mining. We have collaboratives in that are focused on construct the construction industry, and then we partner with those organizations that address the issues in and around some of our other targeted sectors and industries. But but addressing workforce development is a big component of making sure that we are competitive, not only for companies that are looking to expand, to relocate, but also those companies that are here and want to expand here in our region
Brandon Burton 11:45
that is so important, and it’s kind of the chicken or the egg, right? Like you want the big business there, you want the companies to relocate, but they need to have the workforce. And at the same time, you’re trying to build the workforce, and kind of think, if you build it, they will come kind of a sense, you know, if there’s your baseball tie in, right? Very good. But I’m curious with the approach, with this, the schools, the, you know, school system, the secondary education, what, what approach is the chamber able to do from that advocacy effort to make sure that these students are being prepared to enter the workforce, and specifically in these key we’ll say categories, these key industries you’re looking to have workforce for. What’s that approach look like?
Michael Guymon 12:34
So Brandon, really, it’s our job as a chamber to make sure that the industries and the companies are engaged. You know, I’m not. I’m not here to tell our community college system or our university who do incredible work in our community and our true are truly our economic drivers of the community. I’m not here to tell them what to do. But what I can do is bring, come more, more and more companies to the table, for them to say, here are the positions that are open. Here are the skills that I need. Here are the skills that I think are lacking in our community, to have those conversations so that our post secondary education institutions understand what the needs are, in hopes that they will help address them. So it’s my job as a chamber to encourage those companies to be a part of those conversations, and we’ve been successful in that we have a lot of companies that are at the table. Could I use more? Absolutely, it’s imperative that I have more and more industries at those tables so that they can express the types of challenges that are they are facing from a workforce standpoint. But outside of that, you know, a lot of the issues that we hear, especially at the retail level, are related to public safety, they’re related to transportation they’re related to housing affordability these days. I mean, boy, you know, this is a topic that is certainly not unique to Tucson, but it is something I am hearing more and more chambers talk about how we need to make sure that we address our housing affordability. And the recent term I’ve heard is income. I don’t think it was income based, but basically, you know, income based housing, so making sure that we’re that we’re addressing the various aspects of housing, because it is diverse, we want to make sure that our housing options are diverse, but but those are, those are issues that our communities are facing, and we as a chamber, making sure that companies are at The table to be a part of those conversations and dialogs. Yeah,
Brandon Burton 14:44
I imagine having the companies at the table specifically with workforce and talent, is trying to keep some of that talent in the community. For whatever reason, it seems like a lot of maybe high school students see that they’re the. Horizons are somewhere else, right where they need to go away, leave the community, to go to school or to find a job and to be able to show them the opportunities that are right there in Tucson, I think is key in what you guys are after with this approach, absolutely,
Michael Guymon 15:13
and it’s, I’m glad you mentioned that, because we’re having conversations right now, particularly with our university, about that, whether it’s, you know, seen as a brain drain or a brain gain, and the ways that we can address that we used to actually host an event called the career crawl, and this was getting local companies and students connected. Because a lot of the jobs fairs that occur on college campuses are companies that are from outside coming into our community and saying, Hey, we got a great job for you the Bay Area, or we got a great job for you in Chicago. And they and those students leave because of that. Well, we wanted to create a local job fair so that students could have a better understanding of what that local job opportunity looks like. And the U of A the University of Arizona actually picked that up. They now have a have an annual and actually sometimes twice a year, Job Fair called Tucson jobs now. So they took our idea and they created their own job fair that focuses on local job opportunities. And what we’re seeing now, we’ve actually seen some of those statistics shift. It used to be that that a quarter of our of our graduates stayed here in Tucson, which is a really low number, because in some communities, it could be upwards to 50 and 60% that is now inching up. We’re now seeing that number is now 35% of our graduates staying here in Tucson. And so from a statistical standpoint, we’re actually seeing a brain gain over the last three to four years as a poor as opposed to a brain drain. Could we do better? Obviously, we could, but we’re at least sitting seeing those those graduates, stay here more than they have in the past, and and we’re hopeful it’s because of things like that, where we’re opening more doors to local opportunities.
Brandon Burton 17:14
It’s trending the right way, for sure,
Michael Guymon 17:18
absolutely.
Brandon Burton 17:19
I love the approach of local advocacy and in these areas that you talked about with transportation and quality of life and public safety and housing, and can you talk to us a little bit more about some of the different approaches? Maybe in these other categories, we spent some good time on the workforce and talent development, but talk to us a little bit about the transportation or quality of life and things of that nature? Yeah,
Michael Guymon 17:43
absolutely. So I’ll start with public safety. So couple, two and a half years ago, I created our coalition against retail theft. It was small businesses, even, oddly enough, one of our one of our mortuaries, as well as you know, places like CVS and Walgreens were a part of this coalition because they were experiencing retail theft today, more than they have, like, extremely, more more than they have in the past. And so we created this coalition to address a lot of those challenges that those companies were facing, and we brought in local law enforcement, we brought in our city and county attorneys. We brought in a lot of the individuals to be a part of those conversations, direct conversations, so that we could come up with with solutions. One of the solutions that we did come up with, we were the recipients of a local grant that awarded small businesses micro loans, or actually, sorry, micro grants. It wasn’t a loan a micro grant to put in new lighting, to put in new vegetation, to put do things with on their own property, to discourage retail theft and and vandalism and things that would happen, you know, private property vandalism. So so we were successful in that, and we want to do more of that. And so now our conversations have grown outside of retail theft and are really focused on public safety and things that we could do to to make sure that we are addressing public safety, and a lot of that comes down to making sure that we’re hiring more police officers and other things to to address public safety in our community. As it comes to trans transportation, we have a reauthorization that’s going to be on the ballot next year of our Regional Transportation Authority. This is a 20 year half cent sales tax that was approved back in 2006 it will sunset in 2026 so next year we’re placing on the ballot an extension of a 20 year extension to that half cent sales tax. And that, again, is just Pivotal, especially in a state where we’re seeing. Fewer and fewer state shared revenues coming toward transportation. If we don’t reauthorize that we locally are going to be in a world of hurt, and we know how important transportation is to our economy, to deliver the goods and services that companies and small businesses depend on, it is absolutely critical that we maintain a robust transportation network. And so that’s that’s some that’s a huge, going to be a huge focus of ours going into next year. And
Brandon Burton 20:31
I’ve seen chambers, you know, in other areas, have a lot of success with taking on initiatives like that transportation to get it on the ballot. And this is a renewal. So hopefully it’s a little easier to tell that story. But for the person that says, Well, I don’t take you know public transportation well, but a lot of the people that are you know, serving you your dinner at the restaurant, they do, and if you are not participating in this, you’re going to pay a lot higher or not have a wait staff, or whatever it is. I mean, there’s all different industries that have employees that rely on public transportation, and you see that across the board, for quality of life within a community, if you don’t have a strong, you know, transportation, says public transit system, then you suffer. So hopefully that’ll, you know, get that momentum you need, get it across the finish line and renew that and keep your community thriving. Are there other areas you touched a little bit about housing? What are some of the the approaches that you guys are taking on with housing?
Michael Guymon 21:35
So when it comes to housing, we are working with mainly our our county. So Pima County is the county that serves our region, and our Pima County, believe it or not, is the same size as the state of Connecticut. So counties in Arizona are quite large. We only have 15 we’re the sixth largest state, but we only have 15 counties. So our counties here are pretty big, but so Pima County does a lot of work. In fact, it does a lot of work that counties typically a lot of urban work that counties typically don’t do to counties typically provide rural services, but our county does a lot of urban services. So they’re pretty big player in terms of making sure that we continue to to establish a pro business environment here in the region. But when it comes to housing, they have established a Housing Commission, and we are looking at various proposals and initiatives that would that would help address that some of it, quite frankly, Brandon is going to come down to to public support, but we can also look at ways in which we lessen some of the regulation. So regulation is a big, big issue when it comes to being able to provide the housing supply. And as we all know in the chamber world, supply and demand, economics is a real thing, and understanding that is pivotal for communities as they’re trying to address some of these issues. And so the better we can lessen regulation, or at least address regulation in the right way that provides the ability for developers to build housing stock is going to help address the supply and demand issue, and if they’re able to build more supply that meets the demand, then those housing prices are going to come down. It is just basic economics. So So our focus has been and will continue to be on the regular regulation side of things. And there are some great examples out there. We’ve learned some examples in the Minneapolis area. There are some examples that are going on in California that really address that, that supply issue, and so we want to enact some of those things outside of sort of public support for for housing.
Brandon Burton 23:54
Yeah, no, that’s that’s great, and it really gives some ideas about how housing can be approached. Again, the local approach to advocacy, I think, is so important. And like you said at the beginning, it’s normal for chambers to have staff that are tasked with going to the state capitol or going to Washington, and there’s a place for that, absolutely, but be able to turn the advocacy internally within the community, to build that that place making really within your community, to have it be a place where businesses want to be, where people want to live, where you have that quality of life, is so key. Yeah. So I wanted to ask on behalf of listeners who are wanting to take their chamber up to the next level, kind of tip or action item might you share with them as they try to get after that goal?
Michael Guymon 24:46
Yeah, I would say just make sure that you are providing the right kind of value proposition, whether it’s serving your members on a regular basis or, you know, one of the one of the actions that we took was. So knowing that our advocacy was a primary driver for companies, small, medium and large to join the chamber, we actually embedded our Public Policy Council into our bylaws. So you know the normal committees that you would find in bylaws of it, like the Finance Committee and the Governance Committee, but we actually put our public policy council committee in our bylaws because we knew how important that was to our members, and by putting in the bylaws, that means that a board member of ours has to chair the public policy committee. So it’s that direct link between Board activity and our what we consider our number one value proposition for our members, and to demonstrate how important that is, our community, our connections important. Of course, they’re important. We’re going to continue to provide events. We’re going to continue to provide mixers and breakfasts and ways in which our businesses can connect and connect, whether that means connecting with leaders so that they can share their thoughts or connecting with each other so they can do business with each other. We want to make sure that we’re continuing to do that, but we are also putting together our next three year strategic plan, and as it stands right now, it has yet to be approved by the board, but we’re we are having conversations with all of our committees, our board, our high level investors, and at the end of the three years, we’re looking to have 80% of our funding go toward our advocacy efforts. That that’s a big percentage, that’s that’s certainly more than most chambers would be comfortable with accepting, but again, that is something that our members are telling us is important to them, and they’re willing to shift and maybe even grow dollars on the advocacy side of the of the of the staffing coin, so that we can be that stronger advocate for for the region and and part of that is because of what we are up against in Tucson, maybe different from and unique from other communities. We have a a government that doesn’t see the value in in business, thoughts and opinions, and so we have to push harder than some other chambers have to when it comes to our local governments, to say, This is why the business voice is important. This is why you need to include the business community in a lot of your conversations as you develop your ordinances or your initiatives. And so because of that push, because of that added push, we’re going to have to add resources on that side of the ledger, and our board seems to be comfortable in moving that direction.
Brandon Burton 27:51
That’s great. Just between the board and your members recognizing the impact and seeing you guys move the needle with your advocacy efforts to want to lean into it even more. I think is huge. So yep, Well, Michael, I like asking everyone I have on the show, as we look to the future of chambers of commerce, how do you see the future of chambers and their purpose going forward?
Michael Guymon 28:14
Well, it’s interesting. You say that because we are in a due diligence process right now to potentially merge with our economic development organization, the very same one that I used to work for, and I was there for seven and a half years. I’ve been to the chamber now here for for six years. And so I’ve seen both sides, and what I truly feel is and I and in my conversations with chambers across the country who have got who have actually successfully merged with their economic development organization to have the expansion slash attraction and retention arms under one roof, I think, is powerful. So I see, and again, based on a lot of the conversations and a lot of the trends that we are seeing in the chamber environment across the country, I see more of that happening. And so I think the trend to answer your question is moving in that direction, to to establish a merged relationship with economic development organizations, I think, is going to be the future of chambers. To be, not only that advocate for a pro business environment, but also, like we’ve talked about, be that advocate for their community’s competitiveness, because it is a much more competitive world out there. Companies are moving and relocating more today than they have in the past. And so for chambers and economic development organizations to be aligned in their messaging, be aligned in their content, I think is going to be not only the trend for chambers moving forward, but also to establish a more powerful organization. That can bring all of those services to bear and be that advocate for pro business policy and for competitiveness in their respective communities. So
Brandon Burton 30:13
out of curiosity, and I know it’ll look a little different in each community, but how does a conversation like that begin when you talk about a possible merger with the chamber and Economic Development Authority, yeah,
Michael Guymon 30:26
based on a lot of the conversations that I’ve had, some of them are like, like us. It’s come down to there are too many business organizations in your region, and sometimes it’s hard for that collective, unified voice to exist, and the more dispersed voices that you have in a region, sometimes can dilute that voice as you’re trying to advocate and lobby for a pro business environment. So sometimes it starts there, other times it starts with and I’ve had these conversations with other communities as well. It started with an exiting of of a senior official, like a CEO of either a chamber or an economic development organization, where, when that person exits the community, kind of takes a step back and says, Okay, well, that person’s exiting maybe now, maybe the timing is right now for us to take a look at whether or not these two organizations should should be under one roof.
Brandon Burton 31:27
Yeah, I think that’s helpful, just to be able to keep minds open and perspectives open, to see when that opportunity, when it makes sense. I would argue in a lot of cases, it does make sense, but to see when that timing matches up and how to start those conversations. Yeah, well, Michael, I wanted to give you a chance to share any contact information you’d like to put out there for listeners who may want to reach out and connect and learn more about how you guys are doing things there in Tucson. What would be the best way for them to reach out and connect with you? Yeah, happy
Michael Guymon 31:58
to do that. So our website is TucsonChamber.org and my email address, should anyone want to email me, is mguymon@tucsonchamber.org happy to love answering emails. I’m definitely one of those individuals that gets back to folks within 24 hours. So love to communicate, love to learn, love to share ideas. Love to share best practices. And just love to communicate, like I said earlier, with other chamber executives. Because my way is not always the right way, but I can share what works for us, but I can also learn what works for others. So happy to do that absolutely
Brandon Burton 32:48
well. We’ll get that in our show notes to make it easy to find you and for listeners to connect with you, but I do appreciate you spending time with us today on chamber chat podcasts and sharing what is working for you guys there in Tucson, and thank you for being with us and sharing your perspective with us today.
Michael Guymon 33:06
Thank you so much. Brandon. I appreciate it.
Brandon Burton 33:08
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