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Our mid sized business was very disappointed by the Asheville Chamber of Commerce. They offered very little for a firm like ours, and most of the programs and mailings they sent were pretty weak and of no use or interest to us. Organizations like the Chamber have limited impact, even in a small city like AVL.
I personally know Pam, and I can attest that she is one of the hardest working individuals in economic development in WNC. She genuinely cares for the small business community and works hard to help our community. AdvantageWest's loss is the Chamber's gain. The Asheville Chamber is adding a high caliber individual who will be an asset to Buncombe County and Asheville. Pam, we wish you well.
I expect noting but great things from this dynamo organization harnessing all the entrepreneurial talent out there and totally transforming our city…….can't wait for the thousands of jobs and new businesses to descent upon us.
Just a joke with these do nothing jobs in Advantage West and the Chamber of Commerce. Just reading the job titles of some of these positions is enough to send em running for the ridgetop.
Economic development in this century is poorly understood- both citizens and economic developers. In WNC, economic development is fragmented, at best. Entrepreneurial development is also poorly understood, incredibly fragmented, and from the last analysis done in 2004 in a Chamber-sponsored study, incredibly inefficient and ineffective.
Players moving the pieces from agency to agency, without any understanding of the processes and required actions for entrepreneurial development will perpetuate this dynamic. A clear understanding of who is doing what, following the money, a bit of transparency (related to actions and outcomes) and fiduciary accountability would be welcome.
The Asheville Chamber of Commerce is basically too expensive and ineffective. They really pressure small businesses to join, but offer no real value for the high membership fee.
The economic development efforts of the Chamber have been a long running joke in the area. They have little success in attracting, or even managing to keep, some of the companies who are already here.
A few years ago there was a Jim Roberts who had a similar job at Advantage West. He smiled and talked a lot, spent lots of money, hired a bunch of consultants, but got absolutely zero results and left town very abruptly after a few years. So they seem to have replaced him with this lady and now she's moving to the Chamber for the same type of position.
So…..why is the same type of "entrepreneurial development" position needed at the Chamber of Commerce? Isn't this just overlap and needless duplication of meager efforts? Don't our city and county governments have staff that do this type of work too? And, whatever happened to the "HUB Project" of some years ago?
The Chamber already has a large staff of economic development folks who continue chase after big manufacturing companies to relocate here — that is simply not going to happen. I suspect these people earn quite large salaries, but what do they actually accomplish? Nothing tangible as far as I can tell.
We have all these local initiative, government agencies, bureaucratic organizations like Advantage West and the Asheville Chamber of Commerce…. but nothing ever seems to happen.
If we had a real newspaper in this town, this would be a great investigative story.
Delta, you nailed it! Bravo!
This is great news. Congratulations to the lovely, wonderful, and supportive Pam. Hooray!
OMG, here we go again with the vicious circle of Asheville & WNC ole boy/gal backscratching.
First of all, Advantage West has always been one of the least effective organizations in the state of NC. It's basically a place for defeated and would-be political types (both Republican and Democrat) to earn a large paycheck doing very little for the region.
This person comes from Advantage West which is certainly not a feather in anyone's resume. And now, big surprise, she joins an equally poor organization the Asheville Chamber of Commerce.
Rick Lutovsky practically ran the Chamber into the ground by staffing it with his cronies for years and stuck it with massive debt for the huge new chamber building on Montford Ave.that is not even in downtown proper.
What a lot of people don't realize is that many chamber departments are funded with taxpayer money, especially from Buncombe County) to run departments like economic development and entrepreneurship. She is just another part of a totally ineffective bureaucracy that does very little for the region. People like this just float from one bureaucracy to another. I expect little in the way of tangible results.