He’s all about business in Saratoga

Chamber of commerce president looking forward to ending of lockdown

For the Times Union’s regular Capital Region Q&A feature, we talk to local people about their jobs, lives and the place we call home. Today’s subject is Todd Shimkus, president since 2010 of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce. He moved to the greater Capital Region from north-central Massachusetts in late 2002 to become president and CEO of the Adirondack Regional Chambers of Commerce. Now 53, Shimkus and his wife, Lisa, a schoolteacher, live in Saratoga Springs and have two adult children: Katelynne, 30, a Boston resident, and Benjamin,

26, who lives in Brooklyn. Answers have been minimally edited for clarity and length.

Q: We’re just arriving at phase two for the economic reopening of the Capital Region. How does that feel?

A: Thank God we’re finally here, and let’s hope that we can continue reopening in two weeks and then on to phase four two weeks after that. Everybody is ready to move forward. Our health statistics have been good for weeks now, and we’re anxious to get back to work and do it as safely as possible.

Q: Tell us about one of the chamber’s efforts, the Small Business Recovery Kit.

A: It’s for business that have been completely or partially shut down. The kits are free, and they’ve got masks, hand sanitizer, disinfectant, signage and more, all through the generosity of a whole host of local providers. We’ve distributed more than 500 of them so far.

Q: What was the initial mood in the Saratoga business community when the shutdown of nonessential businesses happened two and a half months ago?

A: At the time everybody felt like they understood the importance of trying to stop the spread of the virus. I think we generally thought it might be three weeks, maybe until the end of April. I don’t think any of us expected we’d be sitting here in June, still waiting to reopen.

Q: What does a Saratoga summer with no track and no SPAC look like?

A: It will obviously be very different, but I’m still not convinced that we will not have fans at the Saratoga Race Course at some point during the season, though they said it will open without any. Opening day is still six weeks away. I just got off the phone with representatives from about 25 hotels in the area, and I can tell you that they are starting to see small numbers of leisure travelers booking to come in on summer weekends, primarily from not too far away. They think there’s some pent-up demand for people to get away by coming to Saratoga.

Q: But what is a Saratoga summer without its arts and culture?

A: Here is where we need to get creative, to use our many outside spaces — parks, parking lots, streets, sidewalks — to see how we can bring the arts outside. We’re talking to museums about bringing displays downtown, to folks who have had events about how we can accommodate them, and to city and town officials about expanding outdoor areas for places to perform safely and outdoor dining.

Q: There has been talk about blocking off streets downtown —

A: There is no chance that we will shut down Broadway. I have to say that immediately. City officials have made that very clear. It’s a state highway. But there are a lot of parking lots; Broadway has wide sidewalks that might be put to different use; and perhaps sections of Henry Street and Phila Street could be blocked off.

Q: But no beer garden on Broadway between Division and Phila?

A: Definitely not.

Q: If the state’s timetable for reopening holds, the fourth phase could restart in the run-up to the Fourth of July weekend. A: That would give us 10 weeks to make the best summer of it that we can, to be creative from July 4th through Labor Day and then get ready for an even better fall. Q: Have you put a number on the estimated losses to the Saratoga economy for 2020?

A: That’s almost impossible to do at this point. Obviously, SPAC’S impact will be dramatically reduced with its classical season canceled, and Live Nation has canceled many of its shows, but we’re still hoping they can have some. We’re taking a wait-and-see approach and adapting however we can.

Identify the speaker of this quote, describing the speakeasies, gambling dens and jazz and blues clubs of the Spa City’s West Side in the 1930s and ‘40: “Saratoga was fast, man; it was real fast. It was up all night long.”

A: Jeez. I am absolutely the worst trivia player ever. At a contest a few years ago, my team even got the question about the chamber of commerce wrong — and we all work there. I kid you not. So, no, I have no idea who said that quote.

Q: It was Hattie Gray, who founded Hattie’s Chicken Shack in 1938. The city was so lively that, for a period, Hattie’s was open 24 hours a day.

A: Hattie’s Restaurant just reopened for takeout, and I know they would love to have the business to be open 24 hours a day right now.

Q: What have you learned about Saratoga during the coronavirus pandemic surprised you most?

A: How vulnerable businesses are when we don’t take health seriously. The hospitality sector was the first to get it, and it got hit hard. We took a real gut-punch with that when the shutdown happened, and nobody saw it coming. Most of the downtown shops, hotels and restaurants are locally owned, and they’re the most vulnerable when you have a crisis like this; they don’t have the capital like the big chains and corporations do to survive for a long period.

Q: Are there divisions among your members or fellow business leaders regarding how to work together to emerge from the economic shutdown?

A: I sat down on March 13, one of the last times we could all get together in a restaurant, with people from Discover Saratoga, the City Center, the Downtown Business Association, the Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership and the Saratoga Economic Development Corp. We agreed that we were all going to work together, public and private, and we didn’t care whether businesses were members or nonmembers — we were going to reach out to everybody, in all of our databases. We had 500,000 emails and other contacts in the first 30 days.

Q: Your predecessor, Joseph Dalton, ran the chamber for 40 years, and he was the organization’s first paid executive. How long did it take before you felt like you were recognized as having your own identity and your own vision for the organization’s direction, as opposed to still being the new guy?

A: I can tell you exactly: It was Aug. 29, 2011, when we did the Saratoga Lip Dub and continuously shot a video from the City Center to Congress Park, and it even incorporated the race track, with 5,000 people along the way singing along to three songs. I think that was when the community knew we were doing something different.

Q: Will you retire in Saratoga? I’m not chasing you out. Just curious. Joe Dalton lasted for four decades.

A: I have no immediate plans to retire. I’m never going to equal Joe’s time in this job, but I’m in my 26th year of chamber work, so I would love to get to 40 years overall. My wife and I just bought a small house in Saratoga. It has enough space for our kids to visit but not for them to live with us. We think this is our retirement home.

Q: You share it with Sammy, a geriatric Yorkshire-maltese crossbreed that you describe as a “killer attack dog.” Is he a very barky little thing?

A: Yes, and he’ll bite your ankles off. He’s like an angry cat that barks.

Q: And why is this an appealing pet?

A: He’s very kind to Lisa and me.

Q: What’s your single favorite thing about Saratoga? It could be person, place, object or something intangible, like an attitude or ethos.

A: It’s a gambling town. That means people here are willing to take a risk. You’re able to do things that may not work, and people understand that’s part of the gambling spirit. When you have the option of failure, you can be revolutionary.

Q: What didn’t work?

A: We did a H-O-R-S-E basketball tournament during March Madness, and the first year we had 32 teams. Two years later we couldn’t even get 10 teams. We tried to do a silent disco downtown, under a tent, where everybody is dancing under headphones, but it was an utter, dismal failure. I think we had five people there.

The oldest documented chamber of commerce in the world was founded in 1599 in Marseille, France. What was it called?

A: I would assume the Marseille Board of Trade.

Q: You’re thinking too hard. It was the Chambre de Commerce. Remember, this is a dumb pop quiz.

Got it.

When and where was the first chamber founded in the U.S.?

A: I would assume New York City.

Q: Nope: 1773 in Charleston, S.C.

A: I’m doing terrible at these.

Q: You said you were bad at trivia.

A: See? I am.

Q: Realistically, how many of your 2,000 members will not survive the pandemicrelated shutdown and what is projected to be a long ensuing recession?

A: I have consistently said throughout this process, rightly so or no, that I refuse to refuse to project anything, and I’m not going to start.

Q: Best guess: When is Saratoga going to be “Saratoga” again? Is it back to normal next summer?

A: I think we’re looking at an 18-month timetable to full recovery. We need to be able to help as many small businesses as possible survive into next summer so that they can thrive again into the end of 2021, and hopefully by then there will be a vaccine.

Q: Because I have magical powers, I can arrange for you to trade jobs for one day with anyone in the Capital Region and give you the skills to do that job. With whom would you trade?

A: I would love to be Gary Dake of Stewart’s for a day.

Q: Have you ever milked a cow?

A: No, but I’ve picked chicken eggs at a farm. The smell is overwhelming.

Q: So you can do the egg part of a typical milk-and-eggs Stewart’s run.

A: Yes. Not so much the cows. Cows scare me.