The longtime Columbia Chamber of Commerce president says the Chamber’s recent leadership visit to Columbia South Carolina was their largest ever, with almost 75 people.
(photo courtesy of Chamber website)
Many of those are businessmen and women, including Mike Grellner of Plaza Commercial Realty, Matt Jenne of Addison’s South, First State Community Bank vice president Valorie Livingston, Flat Branch Bank president Jim Yankee and Erik Morse from Veterans United Home Loans. Chamber president Matt McCormick appreciates them and the numerous other business representatives on the trip:
“I mean it really is a testament to our businesses that they want to be a part of this. They want to understand but they also want to be a part of the solutions of things that we need to solve,” Mr. McCormick says.
Columbia Mayor Barbara Buffaloe and city manager De’Carlon Seewood also traveled to South Carolina. The main issue they discussed in Columbia South Carolina was downtown safety and public safety. Public safety has been one of the top priorities for the Columbia Chamber of Commerce for several years. Mr. McCormick says the issue is important to our business community:
“Some of the challenges that we’ve seen along the way are that we’ve seen coming along the way is something that is always top of mind. Plus we always want to make sure that we have a safe community for people to conduct our business, for customers to be able to shop or go out to eat or whatever it might be. And just a fun place for everybody to stay,” he says.
President McCormick tells 939 the Eagle that Columbia, South Carolina officials welcomed our delegation with open arms and says the trip was informative and helpful. Columbia Office of Violence Prevention administrator D’Markus Thomas-Brown also made the trip to South Carolina.