Garber aims for community pride
By Chris Walker (Contact)
Originally published 01:25 p.m., January 14, 2008
Updated 01:25 p.m., January 14, 2008
“Monday Conversation” is an interview with a local person. This week’s interview is with Richard Garber, incoming chairman for the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce.
Q What are your goals as chairman of the chamber this year?
A I want to work on embracing the diversity in the Emporia community. We have a diversity committee that I have appointed and will do some hands-on work. We also want to work on educating people on what we do, who we are and how we fit in the community. We also want to work on community pride in Emporia. That is just a critical component.
Q Friday night, you will give a speech at the chamber annual meeting. What will your message be?
A Jon Geitz is going to introduce a project called Blueprint for Success. I will talk about that plan and how adequate retail, commercial development, quality schools, employment, cultural experiences, dining and housing all tie together to create that sense of community pride.
Q Before you worked for Deer Trail, you lived in Emporia but went to other communities to work at setting up John Deere dealerships. Now that you are more involved with the community, how has your perception of Emporia changed?
A I have a whole different viewpoint of the community than from when I first moved here. The places I have been were high-growth areas with much younger citizens than we have here. You didn’t have people that were born and raised in those towns. They were people who moved there and were part of making a community grow. They weren’t as opposed to seeing change. I think the younger we are, the more we welcome change. Here we have a much older, deeper-rooted group of citizens that just haven’t seen that much change and it is a slower growth.
What I see here is just tremendous potential and that goes against anything you read in demographics studies. How can we miss, with the highway systems to and from Emporia and our proximity neighboring towns? We really can’t miss if we develop that sense of community pride and sell ourselves. Its all here, we just need to sell it.
Q As a business manager, how do you feel the chamber has benefited you ?
A Networking. The power of networking is what makes business work. The support we have gotten from the community as a result of that networking with the city, county and KDOT when we were working on our building all ties together.
Q Any weaknesses in the chamber you want to work on?
A I am not going to say we have weaknesses, but I believe we can work to be better. We have good people and I think through good communication and tying things together we can strive to make things better.