The future of Lawrence will depend upon its leaders, the new chairman of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce says, and those leaders need to be men and women who know how to build bridges within the community.

“We need to find ways to bring people together and to capitalize on our diversity,” said Larry McElwain, who took the reins of the chamber’s board.

Addressing those at the chamber’s annual meeting Friday, McElwain, a Lawrence funeral director, emphasized that technology continues to make the world a smaller place and that different groups of people are becoming increasingly dependent upon one another.

“We are truly hitched together,” he said. “All of our efforts will be directed to living that truth and also to working to strengthen our alliances.”

He discussed the city’s early leaders, who helped connect north and south Lawrence with bridges and roadways and later secured an educational foundation through Haskell Indian Nations University and Kansas University.

He pointed to a KU chancellor who helped ensure Lawrence would be on the Kansas Turnpike.

“Lawrence has been blessed for many years with leaders who had the vision for a better Lawrence and the ability to bring people together to get it done,” McElwain said. “Our future in Lawrence will depend upon new leaders stepping up and taking an active role in the prosperity for the diverse population in this community.”

And part of ensuring prosperity is dispelling myths within the community about what the chamber of commerce does, he said.

For example, many are apprehensive about large tax abatements. Others are confused about the chamber’s support of “basic jobs” — those that bring new money into the community — rather than retail development for such businesses as Wal-Mart or Home Depot.

Lawrence also needs to think about just how it wants to grow, he said.

“There is a difference between development, which is zoning and land-use issues, versus economic development, which is those issues plus the creation of basic jobs or new, outside money into our community,” he said.

McElwain said he looked forward to serving the community and helping to clear up some of the confusion in his new post.

“The organization that we serve does not want to leave anyone in our community behind,” he said.