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Chambers tune in to togetherness

Tampa Bay area chambers of commerce are learning they gain strength and relevance when they cooperate with one another.

By James Thorner, Times Staff Writer
Published March 19, 2007

As President Bush finalized his itinerary for a Florida visit last year, the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce got a call from one of its biggest benefactors, the Sembler Co.

The development company, founded by GOP supporter and former ambassador Mel Sembler, persuaded the chamber to lavish $50,000 on a foreign policy speech by the president.

Here's the catch: The February 2006 event took place in Tampa, home turf of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce. St. Petersburg shared its wealth with its cross-bay rival, and the world didn't stop on its axis.

"It's something that hadn't been done for as many years as I can remember," Tampa chamber president Kim Scheeler said.

After years of decline - be it measured in membership, finances or influence - the Tampa Bay area's four major chambers are showing signs of recovery and making new bids for relevance.

Stepping beyond local chicken-and-key-lime-pie banquets and wine-and-cheese mixers, chamber members have discovered the strength that comes with straddling the bay.

Once the epitome of a stodgy Southern chamber, the St. Petersburg business group is forming a political action committee to spread endorsements and cash to Tampa Bay area candidates.

The Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted the Greater Tampa chamber for a business conference on its home turf at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor.

Tampa shared the wealth from its million-dollar baby, the Outback Bowl, by busing the football teams, marching bands and cheerleaders to Clearwater for a "beach day."

Under its new chairman, former state Rep. Sandra Murman, the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce is joining the Tampa Bay Partnership, the seven-county economic development group.

Gone are the days when chambers could build walls and turn inward, said Ken Hamilton, an innkeeper who chaired the Clearwater chamber in the early 1990s. Companies don't limit their horizons to single communities; nor should chambers, Hamilton said.

"Back in those days, man, it was ugly. It was like the old Coke vs. Pepsi stuff," Hamilton said. "We would lose business to Birmingham, Jacksonville or Orlando. If it didn't fit Clearwater, we'd just wipe our hands of it."

The new sense of engagement has come at the end of years of retrenchment. Witness the ups and downs of the St. Petersburg chamber.

In 2000, the group had 2,150 members, but it saw the number slump to 1,900 by 2005. It all happened as the city flowered with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of new offices, condos and stores. Board meetings were cursed with low attendance, and nearly 60 percent of businesses didn't re-up memberships.

"We needed to be accountable to the businesses of our community," said Ford Kyes, a health care executive and this year's chamber chairman. "The chamber was not evolving to keep up with changing times."

A huge search for a chief ended in late 2005 with the hiring of John Long, a high-energy chamber veteran, late of Kalamazoo, Mich. (A sample of Long's boosterism: "We don't think outside the box. We have no box.")

In Long's 15 months, membership rose from 1,900 to 2,400. Symbolic of a new sophistication, the chamber's annual banquet, a four-star affair in January attended by 650 at the Carillon Hilton, drew Gov. Charlie Crist.

Business leaders such as Craig Sher of the Sembler Co. praise such innovations as the PAC, which he hopes sets the agenda on issues such as taxes and insurance.

"In the area of government advocacy, the chamber is a central address for business," Sher said. "That's a pretty powerful group when you consider how many employees make up all of those businesses."

The Tampa chamber has an advantage over its St. Petersburg counterpart when it comes to pull: Tampa and Hillsborough County outsource most business recruitment to the chamber's Committee of 100. Still, the Tampa chamber's recent stability is a late development.

When Scheeler took over as CEO in 2001, the group was $500,000 in the red. No wonder: It spent something like $650 for every $400 it collected in memberships. As often as not, economic development meant luring call centers.

These days the chamber is running a $200,000 surplus. Most talk is about attracting scientists to helm new biotechnology firms.

The roster of 1,800 is a steep drop from the number at the start of the decade, partly owing to Scheeler's emphasis on quality over quantity. Dues are no longer based just on size of the company, but on how much say-so you want.

"Membership's not stellar, but our financial strength has really improved," said former chairwoman Deanne Roberts.

For all the talk of regional cooperation, rivalry flared early this year in the race for where the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center would locate a joint venture with pharmaceutical giant Merck. Pasco County fought for the honor before yielding to Tampa.

But even that victory was couched in the pleasantries of regional cooperation, most recently by Tampa chamber chairman Fred McClure, who promised that offshoots of the Merck deal could stretch across the bay.

"We're only competitive to a point," Scheeler said. "If the company is considering Miami and St. Pete, we're going to do all we can to help St. Pete."

Scheeler, Long of St. Petersburg and chamber president Beth Coleman of Clearwater are doing something unusual next month: They will dine together with their respective volunteer chairmen.

Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship unbound by the bay?

"We have a global view. We have a bigger view," said Coleman, who has run the chamber two years "It's crazy not to work together."

Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce

Founded: 1885 - Members: 1,815 - Employees: 36 - Budget: $4.4-million - New initiative: Sponsoring a trade mission to China

St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce

Founded: 1899 - Members: 2,400 - Employees: 30 - Budget: $2.9-million -

New initiative: Setting up a political action committee

Clearwater Regional Chamber of Commerce

Founded: 1922 - Members: 1,700 - Employees: 22 - Budget: $1.8-million - New initiative: Expanding tourism with its "Naturally Clearwater" slogan

Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce

Founded: 1959 - Members: 1,800 - Employees: 25 - Budget: $3.1-million - New Initiative: Joining the Tampa Bay Partnership

[Last modified March 16, 2007, 17:52:24]