Lavern Squier, president of the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, sees plenty of opportunity for the Lawrence community – business and otherwise – during the next 12 months.

The chamber is the city’s largest business organization, with 17 employees working on the community’s economic development program, Lawrence Convention & Visitors Bureau, membership services and leadership services, including Leadership Lawrence. The chamber has about 1,200 member accounts, covering individuals, businesses and other organizations; represented in those accounts are more than 1,700 chamber members.

Squier became the chamber’s top administrative officer in July 2003, after having served as executive director for the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development in Hays.

Squier recently agreed to answer questions about the chamber’s goals, community’s direction and future for economic development.

Q: What do you see as the biggest issue facing the Lawrence community, and what should be done to address it?

A: We feel there’s not just one issue, but rather a series of issues facing our community, as is the case with any thriving community.

Here in ours, some are immediate, some are intertwined – in fact, most are intertwined. We have that of affordable housing, and all that topic brings with it. And the chamber will be involved : and wants to be involved in that discussion. It’s very important.

The discussions about growth, the cost of growth, smart growth – whatever the terminology is that’s being used by the city – we want to be involved in that. But ultimately, again, Lawrence has some choices to make, as a thriving community. And we think there are some ways to certainly come to grips with that, from everyone’s perspective. But we do have to make that effort.

On the ability to come together to expand the tax base, we have a lot of great energy already devoted to that, by the example of the ED (Economic Development) Board. We have collaborations between the city, (Douglas) County, schools, chamber, ECO2, et cetera, but we have to maintain that vigilance. :

We have known, and we have proven, that our competitive environment is just that – it is a competition between communities, in many cases. And we do have to keep the balance in sight, relative to the fact that we’re needing to have a cooperative vision that we can articulate, and we need to be able to compete in the marketplace with that vision.

Education – maintaining our community, our strengths and quality-of-life issues. From education, to health care and so forth, the list goes on. I don’t think it’s fair to characterize a ‘biggest’ issue.”

Q: What do you see as the chamber’s role in the community?

A: One of the things we have to do is communicate and enhance the public awareness, ultimately, as to not only the facts of the issue, but to assist in providing alternatives – or creation of alternatives – in vision going forward. We’re only going to do that through involvement with decision makers and citizens alike, and that includes our members, intrinsically in that statement. So I think we’ve got to be adept at being a responsible party to the transaction, to the equation.

Q: What do you see as Lawrence’s strengths, in terms of business?

A: Our Business Retention Report is one data-driven response that we can have when it comes to strengths.

One strength mentioned in that report was our relationship with the University of Kansas and the higher-education facilities at large. Specifically it mentioned KU, and the opportunities that it affords to businesses and employees in our community. That’s the tip of the iceberg. : Our educational system at large, our quality of life, our health care system, the arts and culture in the community, those are just symbolic of the many strengths that we have.

Q: How about weaknesses?

A: We need to look at those situations we have to deal with as opportunities, and go from that perspective. We really have been trying to walk the walk when it comes to creating a sense of purpose and a sense of cooperation between government, the community, and the business community as a component of the overall community.

I think we have to make advances in technical training issues in our community. We have to address the cost-of-living concerns, and the housing concerns. The scarcity of industrial property, the marketability of the community – we always have to keep that issue in mind.

I think those are but a few of the opportunities and, again, these are part of being a thriving community. You would not have these as challenges and opportunities if you weren’t a thriving community.

Q: A number of prominent site selectors visited Lawrence in February, and reported liking what they saw. What did you learn from their visit, and what does the community need to do to see that their interest pays off?

A: Their visit reinforced the competitive nature of site selection. There’s no question about that.

One of the conscious decisions we made a year-plus ago, when I arrived, and Lynn (Parman, vice president for economic development) and I were formulating our business plan approach, was that we needed to further develop our personal relationships with site selectors. The days have changed from mass mailings and phone calls and those kinds of things to these people, to companies directly. Personal relationships will get us further, and, in fact, we have seen that already. This is just a further attempt to develop those relationships with key decision-makers – they may be site selectors, but ultimately the bottom line is they’re decision-makers, and we need to treat them as such. :

Getting them in here, on our turf, getting them to see our community firsthand was extremely important and extremely valuable as an outcome. We were a unique community to host this event. :

As for the maintenance issue, to see that the interest pays off: We’re in continued conversations, year round, with those people. We’ll make it a point to not let the growing relationship dwindle. We do that through the strength of economic development initiatives, and it’s embedded in our business plan.

Q: Sauer-Danfoss is among a number of local companies who have been adding to their work forces of late. Should the community expect such additions to continue?

A: Simply put, we’re off to a great start in 2005, and 2004 was a very positive year for us as well.

Expansions are always positive for the tax base. We can expect some of our companies to continue to invest in themselves. If they believe in Lawrence as a place to do business, they’re going to continue to make the needed investments. And I think people forget: They make those investments on a daily basis when they pay payroll, and pay benefits, and they order product. They’re investing in our community, literally, moment by moment.

Q: How will Serologicals Corp.’s recent move to lay off the bulk of its work force at its Lawrence plant affect the city’s continued push to attract other biotechnology companies to town?

A: Here are the realities: This company has built a multimillion-dollar facility here. Approximately $30 million of investment is coming into our community because of Serologicals’ facility. They cannot in any way, shape or form take that with them. They’re here to stay. They are working with a client to do what they need to do to get into production, and we have to treat that as such.

We have every bit of confidence in them, and I think they have it in the community, and I think they’re just doing what they need to do manage costs, to get themselves into production, ultimately, for the right client.

I don’t think there’s any connectivity – not only from what we’ve heard, but even looking forward – between this business phenomenon that they’re dealing with and the recruiting ability, the marketability, of the community. I don’t see any connections. Everybody has market realities, and business realities, and it’d be a different story if they’d taken some other action, more distinctive, but I think this one is not going to affect us in any way.

Q: The relationship between government and business at times can be strained. What can the chamber do to ease the relationship?

A: I think we have approached this by saying that we’re not only going to work on the relationships, and maintain them, and be a responsible party to the transaction, but we’re going to try to walk the walk. We’re going to try to be about trying to identify the situation we need to identify – either opportunities or challenges – we’re going to step in and work with others to develop solutions and visions for those issues and move forward that way.

We definitely want to not engage – and it has been a policy of ours, since my arrival – that we do not want to propagate the us-versus-them mentality. We want to be about doing what is right for our membership, for Lawrence as a community at large, and that’s representative for the citizens of Lawrence as well.

Q: What are the chamber’s goals for 2005?

A: There are four goals. :

Goal 1 is to effectively promote the community.

Goal 2: Provide programs and services that target the needs of members and customers. Because we have a variety of customers, not just members – whether they’re visitors or site selectors or companies, whatever. They’re all our customers. :

Goal 3: Take a proactive role in the community’s ability to achieve economic prosperity. That means lots of things.

Goal 4 is organizational development. We have to be good stewards of the organization that we’re running, as any business needs to be.

Q: Will the chamber accomplish them?

A: The short answer is: They’re ongoing. We always want to do these things, as listed here. But accomplish as in the sense of done, moot, checked off, moved on to something different? No.

We want to. I say that, as in we want to assess satisfaction by can we do better in each and every year’s business plan, and each and every engagement with a customer, in each and every day of doing what we do? That’s our measure of success. We always want to improve, but I think these are ongoing commitments.

I will say this with a great deal of pride: They are great opportunities, for us as an organization. When you think about (how) we’re the ones charged to market the community to all kinds of people, both internally and externally, that’s a great position to be in.