The Chamber, Local Business and Texarkana, U.S.A.

Where did the time go? This is often asked when things are moving. This is Texarkana today. Our area has and is experiencing an “uptick” in the growth of community, business, and great news.

The Texarkana USA Chamber of Commerce has participated, monitored and initiated programs, activities, and celebrations highlighting our community. It provides ongoing services and programs to support its membership through an active dedicated volunteer leadership and professional staff.

The strength of the membership testifies to the confidence, trust and value our community possesses for the Texarkana USA Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has and is addressing challenges and sharing successes ,which fortifies Texarkana USA as a stand-out community.

In 2016, more than 31 new businesses opened or were reopened. This is a celebration of the entrepreneurship spirit. These are opportunities for more jobs, additional selection of products and services and an indication of a growing business base. It further indicates a community that is growing not just with customers, but with opportunities.

The Chamber continues to lead and advocate for sustainable economic growth and prosperity. The business community is constantly examining itself to understand not only present, but future needs. Our business community invites outside analysis to prognosticate future opportunities. This involves the Chamber, community economic organizations and leaders working together to fully understand available opportunities. Many presentations highlight successes, challenges and rewards of a strong future for our region. These outlooks and suggestions are being incorporated into our community and businesses.

The planning for our community’s future requires the active participation of business, government and community members. This commitment demonstrates the importance of community engagement to “look down the road” and strive to build a sustainable pathway to success.

Such involvements and initiations of the Chamber’s Joint City Meetings, bring together government leaders and community leaders to share information when working on common issues. This successful program attracts our community members, to discover information and be attuned to the happenings of our present community and how a broad community synergy can resolve to meet challenges.

The Chamber continues working with our local business to expand and address their issues to maintain their community membership. Consistent communication with our present business leaders provides a continuous improvement mechanism to meet local challenges, facilitate employment growth, and provide business expansion.

The Chamber advocates for business and the Texarkana region by carrying our concerns and successes to both state capitals: Little Rock, Ark., and Austin, Texas. These successful trips not only promote the area, but also provide a learning experience for our delegates and governmental representatives. This year, the Chamber organized the Northeast Texas Coalition bringing together nine Texas counties to visit the Texas capitol to share our challenges and successes. These visits also demonstrate our support for our legislative representatives and explain to state government our community engagement.

Our economic development efforts go beyond helping new businesses open.

The Texarkana region was recognized by the Arkansas Economic Development Commission as a certified Prospect Readiness Educational Program location for future business development. Not all communities receive this recognition.

The Chamber’s leadership in economic development continues with a regional approach of serving our communities and marketing the area for future business development. The Chamber participates with other economic development groups in the region including our cities, private developers, regional associations such as the Southern Arkansas Development Alliance, TexAmericas Center, Arkansas Economic Development Commission and Main Street Texarkana.

Downtown Texarkana is growing and moving forward.

We can easily see the growth of businesses in the downtown area. The increased changing of the environment promotes the walkability of the area. The increased investment of individuals in our buildings for reuse as housing, retail stores, restaurants, the visual and performing arts and offices further promotes our community. Texarkana’s Main Street is coming back with more opportunities of places to go and things to see.

The Chamber Economic Dev elopment Council reached out to address the erroneous crime statistics proliferated on the Internet about Texarkana. Engaging in a collegiate study, the Chamber exposed the true facts concerning our community’s public safety - we are a great place to live and do business.

A community isn’t about standing alone to weather the winds of growth. The Chamber continues to encourage and participate in regional partnerships to address challenges. These challenges include the beautification of the community through the efforts of the LIFT program, the District Courthouse redevelopment project, our work on transportation and the education of our present and future workforce.

For many years, Leadership Texarkana has addressed the need to “beautify” the community with green spaces, entrance impressions and community pride. Many organizations have and continue to join in this important ingredient of creating a lasting first impression of Texarkana USA.

The District Courthouse is a focal point of tourism for our community. The Chamber and the community continue to work on design features to enhance the visitor experience but also for the local efficiency of court proceedings, community access, and community pride.

Transportation is central to our community’s success past, present, and future. Our community history is the convergence of transportation. First, the trail ways to the west, then the railroads, now, highways and airways. It has been a crossroads for over 150 years bringing people together, entertaining travelers, and providing the businesses to support this activity. Not only have we seen the steady use of additional railroad use but also the increase in vehicular traffic. The Chamber continues to champion the expansion of Interstate 69 and Interstate 49. This championship activity includes community leadership visits to our state capitals, regular trips to the nation’s capital, and consistent provision of education on transportation development for the future of business and the community. Air transportation includes the expected development and redevelopment of our local airport. Work is actively underway to redesign our airport terminal to once again highlight the first impression of a positive community with updated services and bringing future growth.

Our community is actively addressing an important ingredient for a successful economic development future—a viable and abundant workforce. This

is more than important to business. It is necessary for a strong and sustainable community. Our three local colleges are involved in preparing our citizens to be the skilled workers of not only today but in the future. Technology and new products are consistently driving the need for additional training and skills necessary to produce the products and to maintain a vibrant economy. Such partnerships with Workforce Solutions of Northeast Texas, our schools – public and private, our businesses, and our colleges are creating a very bright future for our economic community. The Chamber’s economic development program is addressing the education of our citizens through middle school programs outlining and sharing the possibilities for students. We are partnering with our schools and businesses to provide opportunities for teachers to learn first-hand the relationship between classroom studies and work place applications.

The Chamber encourages further partnerships with our governmental leaders by exposing them to the business milieu of the Texarkana region. The Chamber is in the fore front of hosting our Congressional Representatives from Arkansas and Texas to understand the impact the Texarkana Region has on our country’s economy. Our local state representatives are representing local interests and are working together with the community to prepare for our future. The Red River Army Depot, the area’s largest employer, continues to maintain its mission and a reputation of success. The Chamber continues to be the flag bearer and engaged in maintaining this important governmental/ business unit for our region. The Chamber welcomed our new commander, Col. Jason A. Carrico in the summer of 2016, who continues to be a part of the community in meeting the mission of the Red River Army Depot. We are committed to educate our state and country as to its importance for more than the current operations but for future missions as well.

Where would our community be without the hard work and active involvement of our many nonprofit organizations? These groups provide services and support to the community and its many citizens. From health organizations to youth organizations, to people support groups, to churches, to synagogues, to festivals, to sports, to education, to the arts, to historic archives, to libraries, to meeting the needs of the homeless, the unemployed, the abused and often forgotten people, to animal leagues, and to other groups, these groups are more important today than yesterday. The Chamber assists these organizations in providing the ‘stitching of a community quilt’ to meet our community needs through our Non Profit Council. This successful action is bringing these groups together to develop a synergy of understanding, partnerships and coordination to enhance the opportunity of meeting their missions and the community needs.

When people visit a community, one of the first places they visit is the local Chamber of Commerce. They want more than just a map of where to go. They want to know the fabric of the community…what to see…where to eat…where to sleep… ‘what to do’… and is this a place they would want to live.

For over 100 years, the Chamber has been the ‘go to’ place for information. It continues this service today. The Chamber is actively reaching out in advertising Texarkana USA as ‘Twice As Nice’ encouraging visitors to our community. It has and is working with conventions, reunions, business relocations, professional recruitments, and sporting events to provide hospitality information. Many community guests see our advertising in publications, visit the websites, and call local establishments to learn more about the Texarkana possibility. We have provided thousands of promotion packets for groups visiting Texarkana. Hotel rooms are being filled, restaurants are growing, and visitors are making their way to our Texarkana region as a place to enjoy.

Does the Texarkana USA Chamber of Commerce feel our community is successful? Does the Chamber feel the future is exciting? Are we, as a community, on the right road? You Bet It Is!!! Our community is engaged for the future. We have a strong history but we are not focused on the past, we are focused on the future. God placed our eyes on the front of our head for reason—to look forward. This is what we are doing. Texarkana USA is alive and doing well. As a community, we need to embrace a sustainable and successful future and race down the road to meet it. We can make it happen. WE ARE TEXARKANA!!