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Brandon Burton (00:01.068)
Hello, Chamber Champions. Welcome to Chamber Chat podcast. I’m your host, Brandon Burton. And here on the podcast, I introduce you to people and ideas to better help you serve your Chamber members and your community. Today, we’re excited to welcome Rick Pearce President and CEO of The Chamber of Commerce, serving Middletown, Monroe, and Trenton, a role he’s held since June of 2013. Rick is a passionate connector and advocate for business, education, and workforce development.
Through his leadership, the chamber has strengthened collaboration among employers, schools, legislators, government partners.
and community organizations at the local, state, and national levels. He’s been instrumental in launching innovative workforce initiatives such as Manufacturing Month, Health Care Month, the Workforce Institute, Pathways to Professions, and Skills to Careers, all designed to help students discover local career opportunities and better understand the skills needed for long-term success. Rick also helped shape the Future Ready skill set, a framework developed in partnership with the Manufacturing
and healthcare leaders to identify the essential skills high school graduates need as they enter the workforce. That work has influenced classroom learning and employer engagement throughout the region. Before joining the chamber, spent 23 years in corporate training and special event planning. He’s a graduate of Miami University and the U.S. Chamber Institute of Organization Management, and he’s completed leadership programs to the U.S. Chamber Foundation. Rick, 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 if you would share something interesting about yourself so we can all get to know you a little better.
Rick Pearce (01:49.413)
Yeah, Brandon, thanks for having me on. I haven’t done too many of these in the past, but I am looking forward to it. A little part interesting, know, as everyone will share with you that’s in the chamber world, when you’re in the eighth grade or so, you don’t raise your hand and say, you know, I’d like to be a Chamber of Commerce executive. The career kind of picks you after a certain period of time.
Brandon Burton (02:13.538)
Thanks
Rick Pearce (02:14.821)
So the last 13 years have been extremely fulfilling, extremely challenging. And as everybody listening knows, you know, I’m going through the same challenges they are. So it’s been fun. I guess the most interesting thing is my wife and I have an interesting hobby that doesn’t really associate itself well with chambering. we…
Brandon Burton (02:37.855)
Okay.
Rick Pearce (02:38.625)
We enjoy throwing a couple of legs over the motorcycle and traveling the byways of the state and the tri-state area. So we’re located in the southwest corner of Ohio between Cincinnati and Dayton. So it’s extremely easy for us to get on any country road to make it to Indiana, to make it to Kentucky. So it’s not unusual for us on maybe on a weekend to hit both all three of those states in one day.
Brandon Burton (03:04.713)
Okay, well that sounds like fun getting out on the open road and enjoying the time together.
Rick Pearce (03:09.541)
It’s extremely therapeutic. Yeah. However, this spring has not cooperated well with us, so I’ve got a heck of an inch I need to scratch.
Brandon Burton (03:13.13)
I can imagine.
Brandon Burton (03:22.54)
Yeah, need to get some of that decompression out, right? Well, tell us a little bit about the chamber to help us set the stage. Let us know about the size of the chamber, staff, scope of work you guys are involved with, budget, just to help us understand where you’re coming from.
Rick Pearce (03:25.337)
Yes.
Rick Pearce (03:40.581)
Yeah, so we’re 109 years old. We go 110 for next year, found in 1917. We were originally founded as the Middletown Area Chamber of Commerce. Then as time went through and probably sometime in the early 80s, we merged with two other communities, Monroe, Ohio, which is just south of us and Trenton, Ohio, which is just west of us.
And then that we became the Mid Miami Valley Chamber. So we’ve gone through several name iterations. The name we have today is probably the longest name of any chamber in the state and or the country. The Chamber of Commerce serving Middletown, Monroe and Trenton. So I get a lot of flack for that when I have to introduce myself anywhere that my, the name of the chamber just keeps going and going and going. Because of where we’re located in Ohio, we’re extremely industrial.
Brandon Burton (04:32.529)
and
Rick Pearce (04:39.449)
We have a still working steel mill, was originally known as Armco Steel, founded here. It then changed names to AK Steel in the 90s. And then more recently, Cleveland Cliffs, a mining company out of Cleveland, purchased it. So they’ve probably had that mill for maybe two or three years. Probably one of our largest employers.
Brandon Burton (04:43.352)
Okay.
Rick Pearce (05:08.997)
We used to have a lot of paper in Southwest Ohio, both above us in Dayton, Ohio, Middletown, and then below us in Hamilton and Cincinnati. As you know, the paper industry almost doesn’t exist here anymore. We still have a few. We have a paper facility as a member that does recycled towel and tissue. We’ve got plenty of water here, which would, it’s conducive to the paper industry.
You know, as you mentioned earlier with the future ready skillset that we worked with, we worked with manufacturing and healthcare, which probably makes up a good 40 % of our membership. So that kind of gives you kind of an idea. There was only a staff of two of us. So you’re, you’re, you’re talking to 50 % of the workforce here. I think, I think chambers and I’m going to say this, I’m extremely understaffed, but anybody who’s listening knows they’re understaffed as well.
Brandon Burton (05:45.302)
Okay.
Brandon Burton (05:55.169)
All right.
Brandon Burton (06:05.038)
That’s right.
Rick Pearce (06:06.797)
But we get by what we can do, what we can try to get done. COVID taught us that we needed to cut a few things. So as I told the board, as we move forward, we’re gonna cancel out a few things. We just hope you don’t notice it because there’s only two of us. We have to spend our time very diligently on what we do.
Brandon Burton (06:28.578)
Yeah. What would you say the programming is that moves the needle the most? it all around workforce development or are there other areas of programming that you guys focus on?
Rick Pearce (06:39.577)
Well, we focus on three, we got three focus areas, Advocacy and government relations, which I think all chambers should be getting into. I think they need to learn a little bit more about that and understand it. I don’t know how active they’re going to be, especially with limited staff, but they still need to know their state representatives, their state senators, all of the paid staff, so to speak, or their representatives at the state level.
the attorney general, the lieutenant governor, the governor, know, secretary of state, all of those positions have area reps and the area reps know if they go to the chamber, they get one stop shopping and reach a lot of businesses at once. We have an active committee that meets monthly and we basically just get informed of what’s going on. Our last meeting talked about
a big push to get rid of property taxes in the state of Ohio. Of course, everybody would like that, but there’s a lot of consequences that come along with that. So advocacy government relations is one. Future ready workforce is the other, which is where we spend a great majority of our time. And the third focus area would be leadership.
Brandon Burton (07:42.574)
except the state, right?
Rick Pearce (07:57.69)
which is how do we grow the next generation of leaders and get them ready to not only become more involved with us and the communities, but also work within their organization to climb that ladder. So we send them through an eight month leadership program, two hours, once a day, once a month for two hours, and then we send them on a tour of a facility and or the community so they can
better get to know who they’re serving.
Brandon Burton (08:31.95)
But for today’s episode we’re gonna…
Brandon Burton (08:39.16)
future ready workforce. So I’m excited to learn much more about that area programming and work that you guys are involved with as soon as we get back from this quick break.
All right, Rick, we’re back. As I mentioned before the break,
Today we’re diving in on how to create a future ready workforce. I know that’s one of the areas of focus for your chamber. As we record this, it is the end of the school year for most of those high school students out there. I’ve got a graduating senior this year. Yesterday was her last day of school. So this is a topic near and dear to my heart, seeing my kids getting ready to enter the workforce.
Rick Pearce (09:00.581)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Burton (09:22.948)
What is your approach or how have you guys approached building a future ready workforce?
Rick Pearce (09:28.869)
Well, it’s been a challenge. When I first started Institute in 2014, I was six months on the job and I was fortunate enough to be sent to Western Institute or West Institute out in the University of Arizona. So that’s the first week in January. So while everybody’s cold up here, was nice weather there.
Brandon Burton (09:47.809)
Yeah, West, yeah.
Rick Pearce (09:58.704)
So one of my instructors shared with us, if you don’t know what to work on, go back and ask your members and they’ll tell you. So I made a phone call back to our office and I asked Ann, who was running the office at that time, and I said, you know what, call the top 20 employers, get some appointments, and then when I get back, I’m gonna meet with them to figure out what their pain points are. And Brandon, they all had the same pain point, which was workforce. Now, that ran the spectrum of what their challenges were.
But basically, they had a hard time finding employees to fill jobs. So at that point in time, I mean, there really wasn’t a place to turn in 2014 or 2015 to try and get answers. Bowling Green Kentucky was doing a good program down there just outside south of Louisville. And there’s several huge manufacturing.
places down there. think they still have a Whirlpool maybe manufacturing plant down there. So I kind of guided, kind of went by their guide for a while and I did a lot of research. The national
Association of Manufacturers put out a guide that kind of helped. So I used that for a while. We brainstormed it with the board. And then what we came up with with these with these focus areas and that was one of them. So back then we called it Education and Career Path. Sometime along 2018, maybe 2019, the U.S. Chamber Foundation Center for Education and Workforce
was putting together a program called a Business Leads Fellowship. Had to do with workforce type issues. So I submitted an application, got selected. I was about 35 chamber executives at various levels, which were local chambers, regional chambers, and state chambers. And they kind of shared with us a lot of the research behind No Child Left Behind, and then the second iteration of that, which I’m going to forget.
Rick Pearce (12:13.485)
And kind of shared with us that, you know, the challenges with education and getting those students prepared for the workforce. So I came back and asked a few of my co-chairs and then the board. I said, you know what, we got to do something with this. So one of the things that we decided to do, Brandon, is I brought together manufacturing and healthcare and I sat them in a room for 90 minutes and I asked them three questions. And the three questions were.
What’s the characteristics of your best employees? What’s the characteristic of your worst employees? And what’s the characteristic of an employee that you’re gonna need in 10 years? So we continued to meet monthly and that took us a little over a year to come up with the list. My co-chair at the time worked at very high levels of education in Oklahoma and in state of Ohio.
Brandon Burton (12:50.478)
Thank
Rick Pearce (13:10.649)
And he said, Rick, do you mind if I sit in on that meeting? I’d like to hear what’s going on. And I said, sure, Bob, you can do that. So if he’s going to do the research for free to figure out who else is doing this in the nation, I’m going to take him up on it. So as we got to close the end of this, after about a year, he said, you know what? This aligns very well with an organization near Boston called the Next Generation Learning Challenge. At that point in time, I was ran by
a guy by the name of Andy Calkins and we did spend some time talking with him a number of years ago. And he said, your stuff aligns with him about 90, 95 % of the time. And he said, it took them about $100 million of Bill Gates’ money to come up with those answers. So we use Andy’s categories of how we put the skill set together.
Brandon Burton (13:51.461)
That’s what I’m trying to say.
Rick Pearce (14:05.155)
But while I was in those training programs with the US Chamber Foundation, that business leads fellowship, I heard a lot about college and career ready, college and career ready, college and career ready. And I said, you know, I said to myself, said, you know, college is a way to a career. It’s not a career. I said, one of the things we got to focus on is giving these students the skills that are needed to
Brandon Burton (14:28.376)
Thank
Rick Pearce (14:31.045)
work past any challenge or any roadblock they might have in their life. So we need to make them future ready. So I really just developed the name future ready and it seems to be catching on. I wish I could have trademarked that. But that was in 2018-2019 when we came out with that future ready skill set.
Brandon Burton (14:38.306)
Yes.
Rick Pearce (14:55.183)
So I shared that with the businesses that participated. I even contacted businesses that weren’t members, told them what we were working on, asked them if they could sign off on it, and they did. And we just keep moving forward with it. It’s not rocket science. Anybody who’s listening could probably determine what that future ready skill set is. They could probably guess 10 of those skill sets that are needed.
and in the workforce today. So it’s been fun.
Brandon Burton (15:28.398)
That’s been fun. That’s quite the journey there. I love that you started with going to Institute and then the of the light went on when you were at Institute.
of being able to see where, these areas of focus need to be and be able to go back to your, your members and say, what do we need to be working on? And I think in every community, the answer is going to be slightly different, but I think most communities, at least what I’ve seen as a trend, you know, doing nearly 400 episodes now, the podcast is that a workforce is an issue across the country. So if you’re not involved in some degree, you probably should be, or ask your, if you’re
members, what should we be involved with? But it seemed to put you on a good trajectory as far as building a future-ready class of students coming out of school.
Rick Pearce (16:21.093)
It did. So Institute did set us on a very different trajectory than what we were, and then more specifically with the workforce part. So I would recommend to anybody out there that has not gone to Institute, do some research, find a location near you or close, learn a little bit more about it. I think chambering is a great career.
It’s a great industry. just recently heard we have our annual meeting in January and I wanted to put some interesting quotes in some of our marketing materials that put out and one of them really struck me and I don’t know who said it but I’d like to give them credit. If you want to change your community for two years run for mayor. If you want to change your community for 20 years work with a chamber.
Brandon Burton (17:21.326)
I love that.
Rick Pearce (17:21.551)
So what we do is long term. It’s what we call an infinite game. We’re in it for the long haul. People change places, players change, faces change. And once you get on a path, you need to stay on it and you need to fix it. as people understand what we work on out there, it takes a long time to get.
Brandon Burton (17:47.938)
Yeah.
Rick Pearce (17:48.453)
And you may never reach the end, but you’re going to make things better.
Brandon Burton (17:53.583)
That’s the thing, chamber work, it’s perpetual work. You keep working towards it and you never quite solve the problem, problems just evolve, right? So you keep pace with it and try to keep up.
Rick Pearce (17:56.805)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rick Pearce (18:01.797)
Yeah.
Brandon Burton (18:05.972)
So I’m curious with the building the future ready workforce and skill set. Do you guys have any data points or ways of tracking kind of where things were before and then tracking? Cause you’re coming up on what eight, nine years or so of focusing on this, this work. What it’s enough time to be able to look back at it and see some success stories or see businesses that have benefited because of the
effort and the time that you guys have put into helping develop a future ready workforce. Share with us some of those success stories and the results that you’re seeing.
Rick Pearce (18:45.477)
Yeah, sure, Brandon. I’ll start with our partners first, and then hopefully we’ll get to some numbers. But when we first got into this, we brainstormed, how are we going to do this? And as the listeners know, Chambers of Commerce are not set up to track post-high school graduates. We’re not set up to find 18, 19, and 20-year-olds.
So we focused on K through 12. And the reason we did that is we know where to find them. They’re in the building. Now, COVID threw that off for a little bit. They probably set us five years back, even though it didn’t last for five years. We had a lot of momentum going into that. So we worked specifically with our K through 12 schools, mostly the high schools, because we wanted to get those kids ready. And it was extremely challenging. It was about the time
One of our past governors had written a law that each of the high schools needed to hire a college and career instructor. So some of the schools, some of the districts had a college and career structure and instructor and some didn’t. So it was extremely difficult in the early days to try to figure out who our contact was and what it was that we wanted to really do with those students to introduce them to various careers.
Brandon Burton (19:47.758)
Thank
Thank you.
Rick Pearce (20:14.021)
So when we put together the Future Ready skillset, I stopped that around to our four public school districts, talked to their board chair and their superintendent, and shared with them that I wanted to make a presentation during the summer of 2019 to encourage them to adopt the Future Ready skillset into their already state minimum graduation standard.
Brandon Burton (20:38.774)
to know how we get the station to move in a more specific way.
Rick Pearce (20:42.885)
Though I had two districts adopted immediately, the largest district that’s were in Middletown City Schools, the superintendent shared, I’ll get to it in my next strategic plan. And one school is one district is still contemplating it. So I got a phone call or an email probably in January of 2020, right before COVID was announced.
And he says, I’m ready to start the next strategic plan, get your businesses ready. So we brought them together. And then what they did was they brought the future ready skill set to life within their district and within the classroom. So I guess the first positive was we were able to influence a school board to adopt the skill set as their new strategic plan. And they’re now in their fifth year of it. So it’s now just going to be part
Brandon Burton (21:36.654)
I’ll see you.
Rick Pearce (21:39.394)
of their DNA. So we’re extremely proud of that. So if I can just continue on that line, they started rolling this out in K through five, then they slowly took it to the junior high a few years ago and they rolled it out to high school last year. They also got a new principal last year and I wasn’t going to bother him so he had things to do so we’re set up sometime in June to meet.
to figure out how we work a little bit closer with them and closer with the students to get them introduced to the various careers that Middletown and Southwest Ohio has for them so they can start to be ready to enter the workforce. We haven’t seen this type of challenges in our country since World War II, since all those young men went to the Pacific and went to Europe to fight World War II for us.
Brandon Burton (22:21.163)
and
Rick Pearce (22:32.773)
And then what ended up happening then is a lot of those women as Rosie the Riveter entered the workforce. So I don’t know the answer to solve the workforce issue other than we got to get the students ready. We got to get them flexible. There’s plenty of careers for them to choose. I guess the main point, Brandon, being a lot of us didn’t have enough kids.
Brandon Burton (22:58.668)
Yeah, that’s right. takes a while to build that back up,
Rick Pearce (23:01.818)
And it takes 18 years to manufacture a workforce.
Yeah, so the first part to answer your question, was a long-winded answer, but we’re extremely proud of the fact that we were able to influence a school board for them to say, okay, this is what the business community needs. Let’s answer this. It’s been a challenge working with the bureaucracy of education because they also have to deal with the bureaucracy of the state education level.
Some of that has changed a little bit. I know that our state level used to be the Ohio Department of Education. They’ve changed that to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. We are way ahead of the curve on this introducing students to it. they actually, Middletown City Schools actually made a class called Passport to Tomorrow where they actually recruited their best elementary teachers to help deliver that subject matter just like they would gym and music.
So part of my job is with the context within the business community is bring the business community into those classes and put together interactive learning experiences for those young students so they can kind of understand what that business does. I know we have an aeronautical corporation in our community called Magellan Aerospace. They make muffler systems and missile fins.
Brandon Burton (24:23.278)
I’m ready.
Brandon Burton (24:27.246)
We may have a process that we can do something about this.
Rick Pearce (24:30.927)
for the government and airlines and jet engines. And they were doing a little exercise with the kids, the second and third graders. So they just decided to put together balsa wood, wooden airplanes. And then as the kids got older, they made paper airplanes. And these kids got to understand what they did. Now, as the student gets older, in the sixth,
Brandon Burton (24:48.606)
Airplanes. Yeah.
Rick Pearce (24:58.789)
sixth, seventh, eighth grade and into high school, they dive into those areas a little bit more deeper. They may even get a tour. So we’re trying to really break down those barriers between business and education and get business in the classroom and get education out of.
Brandon Burton (25:15.926)
Yeah, so.
Rick Pearce (25:16.781)
It’s been a long road, and it’s been very satisfying.
Brandon Burton (25:20.012)
Yeah, so I was going to ask how many school districts you have to work with and sounds like about four and I’m sure there’s
Rick Pearce (25:25.629)
We have four public school districts. We also have two private schools. And we also have a credit recovery high school. So we try to work with all of them. It can be a challenge, especially with just two of us in the office. I wish I had the budget to hire a workforce person to do this for me, but it didn’t work out that way.
Brandon Burton (25:32.75)
Okay.
Brandon Burton (25:47.415)
Yeah, so my next question goes to is there a formal curriculum that’s being developed by these school districts and then once school districts adopt this future ready mindset workforce.
Rick Pearce (25:55.92)
There is. There is a formal passport to tomorrow curriculum that they did put together for this. The next step of the program, when they rolled this out into high school, they put together, Brandon, what was called a program of study. And what they did was they mapped the classes that they were teaching minus reading, writing, and arithmetic.
to the six career fields that I think almost all public school systems are using to identify the various career fields that you can get into. Now underneath of those career fields are industry clusters or career clusters and there’s 16 of those. And I think those are universal no matter what district you go to or what state you go to for public education. I think they’re all using the same six fields and 16 clusters.
Brandon Burton (26:56.398)
Okay, so once a school district or school adopts this programming, how involved does a chamber have to be in implementation and seeing it through and follow up? What does that look like?
Rick Pearce (27:12.569)
That is a full-time job plus.
Brandon Burton (27:15.106)
Yeah.
Rick Pearce (27:16.613)
We work very closely with the districts. I would have to say in my position and a lot of the chamber executives out there know this, that most of what we do aligns a lot with an economic development person at a city, county, municipality. Those are the people that we really work with a lot. Mine, I got two of them. Those are the ED folks and then these are the superintendents and the people in the classroom.
Brandon Burton (27:34.68)
Yes.
Rick Pearce (27:44.248)
I mean, they’re almost like workmates of mine. I wish either I could put them on my payroll or I could jump on their payroll, one of the two, but we do spend a lot of time with them. My job, at least with the specifics to the passport program, Brandon, was to recruit what they call the Ready 100, which was roughly 100 businesses that are endorsing this program. And endorsing means…
They help the students and the instructors create an interactive learning experience, especially for the junior high, or especially for the elementary kids. Excuse me. And then in high school, give them more information on specific skills and specific positions that they have. And then when they graduate school, they guarantee those individuals an interview.
They don’t guarantee them a job, but they will guarantee them an interview. So we spend a great deal of time trying to get the businesses into the classroom. Now, since this is a new program or a new line of thinking for the businesses, it’s been an extreme challenge for them to identify somebody in the business that can go and visit these schools and talk to the students.
Brandon Burton (28:42.979)
Right.
Rick Pearce (29:08.069)
because businesses have been so slim probably since 01, since 9-11. And then we’ve had the economic collapse of 06, 07, 08. We had COVID. So the businesses are used to running lean. So they just don’t have extra people to do this. If I could wave my magic wand and click my heel three times.
I would wish for each one of those businesses to have a few individuals who just went out and talked to the students in the schools.
Brandon Burton (29:42.6)
And I could see where the work is never ending.
Rick Pearce (29:45.99)
never ending. If I can continue, I’ll just close my thought with this, with that program of study and mapping the classes to those six career fields, it’s very timely that you and I are having this conversation because I had two large meetings this week with our business community that I wanted them to start thinking about identifying the appropriate individuals within their organizations.
to start entering the classroom for next school year to start delivering specific topics to those students related to those career fields. So I’m meeting with a group of high school counselors later today at Middletown High School to kind of solidify and finalize what those kind of plans look like for next school year for those businesses to come in and actually help the instructor and or instruct the class on certain topics.
within that field. So that’s kind of where we are today.
Brandon Burton (30:51.054)
That’s awesome. I love hearing the impact you guys are making and the movement that’s happening in your communities there. As we begin to wrap up, wanted to ask on behalf of the, I’m sorry. Go ahead, I want to get that thought. I was going to say.
Rick Pearce (31:00.452)
Yeah, so.
Rick Pearce (31:05.605)
No, no, go ahead. Yeah, the close it. I’ll close this out Brandon with this because I know you asked about the numbers. We don’t have the numbers yet. What we’re trying to identify is with when this was rolled out five years ago to the K through five students. I’m asking the district, are they tracking it?
Are they tracking how well the students are learning? Are 75 % of them learning it? Are 80 % learning it? So they’re pulling those numbers together for me. Obviously, the biggest number in my simple mind and my simple world, would be how many seniors are going to get hired on June the 1st? And will they still have those positions a year later?
That’s what I think is the tall tale sign is everything working. How many kids are hired and have they retained those jobs for at least six months to a year?
Brandon Burton (32:05.078)
Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a great, great metric there. So for those listening who are interested in taking their organization up to the next level, what kind of tip or action item might you leave with them as you depart?
Rick Pearce (32:21.157)
Call me. Call me so we can have a discussion. It’s been a long road. I’ve got plenty of holes in my walls in the office where I’ve knocked my head through the plaster. Every once in a while I make the mistake of knocking my head against a brick wall, so I’ve got some nodules on there from that. So I can save some individuals from hitting the pitfalls and becoming aggravated because we’ve already been through them.
Brandon Burton (32:22.946)
Yeah.
Rick Pearce (32:48.101)
the things to do and the things not to do. Happy to talk to anybody about how to get something like this started or making it better. And of course, they may be doing something interesting that I don’t know about that could help me.
Brandon Burton (33:01.358)
That’s right, that’s right. So I like to ask everyone I have on the show, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Brandon Burton (33:22.195)
I’d like asking everyone I have on the show, how do you see the future of Chambers and their purpose going forward?
Rick Pearce (33:30.725)
Is that a direct question to me?
Brandon Burton (33:33.216)
Yes. Yeah.
Rick Pearce (33:34.47)
Wow. You know, with all the resources that we have available to us, Brandon, and I know you’ve done work with ACCE and you know all about them, they came out with that, second rendition of the Horizons report, which is 2035. I think if Chambers looked at that research and looked at that model and kind of
Brandon Burton (33:50.734)
I’m sorry.
Rick Pearce (34:05.411)
determine if that’s a path to pay attention to. I think chambers become extremely critical in the future. I think for a while we’ve lost our flair. We’ve obviously had to do more with less, which is extremely difficult. With the transient society that we have now and people moving and changing jobs and moving states and changing areas, it’s hard to find those homegrown people that…
really want to make their community better than what they found it. I think our stock and our value goes up into the future because we do represent the business community and I think in this day and age, business should be running things. They know how to solve problems, they know how to run lean, they know how to just get things done. over the last number of decades, we’ve seen that
Government doesn’t do a very good job of solving problems. The business does an excellent job of solving them. So we need to leverage that. And trying to talk with our business leaders to get them engaged can be a challenge too, because they’re so stretched for time and time poverty that it’s hard for them sometimes to get engaged. But the work still needs to be done.
Brandon Burton (35:09.643)
Yes.
Brandon Burton (35:24.782)
Yeah, I love that answer. So you had mentioned as a tip to have listeners reach out to you. I’d love to give you an opportunity to share the best way for them to do that. What contact information would you like to share? Where would you like to point listeners who might want to connect with you?
Rick Pearce (35:43.161)
Well, easiest way Brandon would be pick up the phone and call. 513-422-4551. Ask for Rick. If I don’t answer the phone, just leave it. If we’re not here, leave a message. Love to talk with you. That’s probably the easiest way.
Brandon Burton (36:14.636)
That’s perfect. We’ll be sure to get that in our show notes for this episode and make it easy to connect with you. But Rick, I…
Rick Pearce (36:21.285)
I could also share an email address with you if you like, if people would like to use that as well.
Brandon Burton (36:27.16)
Sure. Yeah, go for it.
Rick Pearce (36:30.349)
That would be Rick, R-I-C-K, at thechamberofcommerce.org.
Brandon Burton (36:40.078)
I’m glad you didn’t have to get the URL with the entire chamber name in it.
Rick Pearce (36:40.942)
Now I.
Rick Pearce (36:44.741)
No, I get lot of flack for it because I’ve heard from a lot of people said, man, I’m not quite sure how you got that domain, but let me know if you want to sell it.
Brandon Burton (36:52.854)
That’s right. That’s right. Well, Rick, this has been great having you on the podcast. really appreciate you coming on here and sharing your insights, your experience that you’ve had, especially as it comes to building a future ready workforce is so important. And I know those listening are getting a lot out of it and seeing ways that they can implement and scale for their communities. So thank you again for just for coming on here and sharing these insights.
Rick Pearce (37:19.759)
Well, you’re welcome, Brandon. I’m happy to share and thanks for answering my call and letting me share a little bit. And it’s been a pleasure talking with you.
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