Williamsport/ Lycoming Chamber of Commerce CEO and president highlights programs, partnerships

Partnerships were developed over the summer months to help to retain and attract a workforce to fill jobs in Lycoming County.

The Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce has programs and a team dedicated to helping to retain and attract employees and employers in Williamsport, Greater Williamsport and Lycoming County. These programs and concepts were shared with chamber membership during a recent breakfast meeting.

"It was a very busy summer, with a lot of our programming that we had been doing," Jason Fink, chamber president and CEO, told members.

The chamber was actively involved with a number of programs involving Little League, however, there were several other activities that the chamber is involved with and the team comes together to be able to assist, he added.

"We are a small staff but we do a lot in this community," he said. "I am very proud of the work they are able to do and thank them (staff) for everything they gave to us this summer."

Over the summer, the chamber did a program with Patrick T. Harker, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Harker attended a program with the chamber on small businesses.

"It was a well received program, a roundtable discussion that allowed him the ability to hear what was happening in Lycoming County in terms of small businesses so they would be able to work on policies to better gauge the needs for businesses," Fink said.

"Very happy to be able to provide that opportunity for our businesses here in Lycoming County, and to have that dialogue with him," he said.

"Everybody that we were able to pull together for that walked away with a good sense that we were providing input that would be used by the Federal Reserve in decisions they will be making that will affect the business community," Fink said.

Another program that wrapped up this summer was a program called The Wilds are Working, a program the chamber picked up through the Pennsylvania Wilds.

"It was an opportunity for us to be able to host remote workers," Fink said.

It was a program that gave them an opportunity to get out of a large urbanized area, be able to come to Williamsport, and experience more of a different lifestyle than what they were living.

These were individuals who were open to living in some place where it was more remote, with the possibility of moving or relocating to the area.

"We were excited to be able to host somebody from New York City, along with Pittsburgh and actually hosted somebody from London, England," Fink said.

Afterwards, the chamber looked at what it might be able to do to market the program to remote workers, but also those types of workers who want to move from a large urbanized area to take on jobs here.

"We do have a number of jobs here in the community that we will be able to fill with people moving into the community," Fink said.

In addition, the chamber continues to work with PMF Industries.

"We are happy to be able to say we have at least had some dialogue with the Governor's Action Team to get them an offer," Fink said.

"They are in the process of reviewing that," he said.

The key thing with that is PMF Industries is partnering with a company out of California and the chamber has been engaging with the California company to see if they can be interested in locating some of their operations here as well, he said.

During the Little League World Series, the chamber hosted the annual Site Consultant Familiarization Tour.

That tour gave the chamber the opportunity to host site consultants that work with business and industry being able to locate new operations for companies that engage them for that work.

That is a great opportunity in the community, not only to bring those site consultants in, but it is a partnership the chamber does with the state Department of Community and Economic Development's Office of International Business Development and the Governor's Action Team.

"It gives us the opportunity to get those state officials to be here to see what we have in terms of availability of land, available buildings, and more importantly, available workforce, and the resources to be able to assist them such as Pennsylvania College of Technology and Lycoming College, to get them the workforce and people they need to be able to take on jobs if they choose to bring companies here.

The chamber is working with a company, The Lending Group, which has a building in Montgomery in a flood zone that they are trying to do renovations on.

"If you have done any work on a property that is in a flood zone it is not the easiest. So we have been assisting them in being able to work through some of the challenges," Fink said.

"They have a $500,000 Redevelopment Assistance Capital Programs (RCAP) grant they were awarded and we are trying to help them to mitigate some of those challenges."

The good thing is it sounds like we have been able to come to some sort of a resolution with the Borough to be able to get that project to move forward, he said.

"We are a small staff, but we do a lot in this community," Fink said, adding how very proud he was of the work done to be able to help others.

The chamber comprises 932 members, which makes it one of the largest chambers of commerce in Pennsylvania, said spokeswoman Taryn Hartle.

In what brought thousands of visitors to downtown Williamsport, the chamber assisted Little League with its activities that drew the world's attention here.

Besides the enormous amount of spectators to the Grand Slam Parade, Williamsport Welcomes the World had its largest vendor participation to date.

Williamsport Welcomes the World is the downtown street party with music and vendors and interaction with players and their families participating in the Little League World Series.