Brian D. Anderson Sr.: Celebrate with us

In about 10 days on Monday evening, Sept. 13, your Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce will celebrate another successful year at its 70th Annual Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce Banquet. Our banquet will once again be held at the Northwest Georgia Trade and Convention Center. We will begin at 6 p.m. with a reception, followed by dinner, remarks from our guest speaker, and then a quick recap of this year’s accomplishments.

Given that our community has endured another challenging year, it may seem to some that a celebration is not in order or not appropriate. I would argue the opposite. It is in difficult times that we need to come together, renewing our bonds of friendship, expressing our mutual support for each other and our community, and celebrating our blessings.

Although the economy continues to sputter and has created much hardship for individuals and organizations, I am confident we are moving forward. And as we have in good times and bad, we have gathered during the annual chamber banquet to celebrate the many accomplishments of not only our chamber but our community as well.

Our keynote speaker this year is appropriately Rep. David Ralston, speaker of the House for the state of Georgia. Speaker Ralston just finished his first legislative session as speaker, and most have exhorted the speaker for changing the tone of state government and the legislative process in general. Although all did not agree and many issues were not resolved in the latest session, most agree that the speaker has returned dignity to the process and reaches out to many to further the work of the House and the legislative process.

In addition to being a seasoned and experienced legislator, Speaker Ralston also hails from North Georgia. Today both chambers of state government are led by those who call North Georgia home — Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and Speaker Ralston. We are grateful to Rep. Roger Williams and Rep. Tom Dickson for inviting the speaker and for getting his acceptance to join us. Given the tough session that just concluded and what will be just as tough a session in 2011, the message from the speaker will be important to all of us.

As I said earlier, we will recap many of our accomplishments for this past year after we hear from the speaker. It goes without saying that accomplishment and our current chairman David Gregg are synonymous. David will be concluding his extended year as our chairman. In early summer of 2009, our then chairman Tom Bundros left our community for a new opportunity in Atlanta. David was our chair-elect and was scheduled to assume the chairmanship four months later. Without hesitation, David agreed to chair our Executive Board for the remaining four months of 2009 and also fulfill his commitment for 2010. We are forever grateful to David for his leadership, his wise counsel, his energy, his patience and mostly his friendship.

It is hard to talk about celebrating during these trying times. But even in the face of adversity, we have made progress.

We developed our annual plan around the central themes of economic development, community development and leadership development. And in each of these areas, we have successfully made a difference in the life of our community.

In the area of Leadership Development, we once again graduated community professionals and leaders from both the Leadership Dalton-Whitfield program and the Emerging Leaders Institute. We also held two celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the Leadership Dalton-Whitfield program. As I have attended professional development classes with many chamber professionals throughout the Southeast, I have a newfound admiration for our leadership development efforts. While many communities our size and larger are trying to start a program, we are celebrating 25 years of success in growing tomorrow’s community leaders.

Given that I recapped many of the successes in last week’s column in the area of economic development, I will not repeat myself. But suffice it to say that over the last four years and during this past year, we have successfully put ourselves in position to capitalize on the recovery that will come. With over $2 billion in announced investment to our north, we are uniquely poised to benefit from Volkswagen and Wacker Chemical. When that level of investment comes to an area, communities within 50 miles are impacted.

And finally within the community development arena, the list of accomplishments is long and distinguished. Ranging from the outstanding effort of many in moving us toward being a Certified Work Ready community to the complex and meaningful work of the Archway Visioning process, our community development efforts have been successful. We have continued to work on education issues, health care issues and many more under the community development umbrella. And we will continue to do so.

We look forward to the longstanding tradition of “passing the gavel” to our incoming chairman Lynn Laughter and introducing our newest board members to you. Please join us on Sept. 13 as we celebrate another successful chamber year. We live in an amazing community. And we have an equally amazing Chamber of Commerce!

Brian D. Anderson Sr. is president and CEO of the Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce.

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