Chamber Wise

By Garry Douglas Understanding, cultivating and delivering the Power of Region has been at the core of our Chamber since the mid-nineties, beginning with the creation of a Regional Chamber of Commerce that would have the numbers and capacity to deliver real services and have a real impact on the North Country’s behalf. Today we read more

By Garry Douglas Each year, the North Country Chamber of Commerce conducts a survey on a number of timely state and federal issues. And at the same time, it takes the pulse of the regional business community about its area expectations for the year ahead, asking if they expect their business activity to be up, read more

By Joel Wood At the beginning of January, our friends at the New York Association of Training and Employment Professionals (NYATEP) released their 2022 State of the Workforce report. Each year we look forward to reading their thorough report and this year was no different. The report detailed a lot of what we already know read more

By Garry Douglas Issue: December 2022 A common misconception is that the thousands of organizations across the U.S. who call themselves a “Chamber of Commerce” are somehow affiliated and certainly must be chartered by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with standards and requirements to be met. In reality, the term is in the public domain read more

By Garry Douglas Issue: November 2022 When I started at the Chamber in 1992, it already had a tradition of holding an annual overnight Strategic Planning Retreat for its Board and staff at a location outside of Plattsburgh. The first one I organized along with Herb Carpenter and Mark Barie was at the old Wawbeek read more

By Garry Douglas Issue: October 2022 The North Country Chamber has the privilege of serving as the Tourism Promotion Agency for Clinton County and as an I Love NY partner with the state. In this capacity, our Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau, a division of the Chamber, carries out an active and diverse marketing effort each read more

By Garry Douglas Issue: September 2022 As we head into fall, there is good news and concerning news at our northern border. The good news is that Canadian crossings at Champlain since April have been at a level of around 70% of the numbers for the same period in 2019. This compares with a significantly read more

By Garry Douglas Issue: August 2022 In late 2019/early 2020, pre-pandemic, Clinton County saw an historic low in unemployment of 2.7%. Two-and-a-half years later, after the somewhat higher unemployment levels of the pandemic, we are at 2.9%. This is of course good news for the people and families of our area who are enjoying not read more

by Garry Douglas Issue: July 2022 For many years, the North Country Chamber has endeavored to position itself as an effective voice for North Country issues and projects in Washington, going back to the Plattsburgh Air Force Base redevelopment process in the 1990’s. Our approach is based on forming and sustaining mutually valuable, bi-partisan relationships read more