The Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a Chamber Board retreat on Thursday, November 10th.

Chamber of Commerce CEO Dennis Beson said the meeting was about coming together, getting a common idea, and understanding everyone’s role on the Chamber Board.

“It’s important for me that every one of our Board members knows why they’re there – what is the Chamber of Commerce, what’s it about – and I think there’s been a little bit of a lack of continuity for the last several years – that’s my whole focus, bringing everybody on the same page, in the same direction,” said Beson.

Part of that unified direction included a new Mission Statement for the Chamber Board:  To promote community and ensure a thriving environment in the Junction City Region.”

Ideas discussed ranged from strength in the Consolidation, to Regionalism, and Economic Development.

Junction City Mayor Mick McCallister said that the defense community is a market that city and county officials need to tap in to. “Fort Riley pays out millions of dollars every year that we’re not part of, so how can we be part of that; do we need to bring in a company that fits what the defense community needs.”

McCallister said that obviously we want to be diversified, but we are not utilizing the resource that is Fort Riley to it’s full potential. “Obviously, there’s retail, there’s the NBAF corridor, there’s the animal corridor, there’s a lot of things that are on the horizon that we need to be focused on; but we also need to focus on what we have right now – we have the equivalent of a General Electric, Dow Chemical, we have the equivalent of a major company bringing in millions of dollars a year and we’re not taking advantage of that.”

McCallister cited workforce development as one of the biggest issues in Junction City.

County Commissioner Ben Bennett said that economic development was a topic that he addressed during the retreat.  “I was in McPherson last week, Commissioner Whitebread and I went down there and we saw what they’re doing with economic development…there’s just so much that we’re not doing [here]…yea we need an Economic Director, but maybe not a director [per se], we need to get moving and quit saying ‘woe is me’ and start moving forward.”

“This retreat today was a very good start in reviewing those issues and also moving from here in to our regional issues,” said Bennett.

While this is a good start for Bennett, McCallister hopes that action – not just talk – comes out of the meeting.

“We’ve talked years and years about doing surveys, doing plans, doing things that we should be doing, and then after the meeting, everybody is in a good place thinking ‘okay we’ve got a plan’…but we never execute the plan to the full potential,” said McCallister.

The Chamber Board will meet again on November 30th ahead of a Regional Leaders Retreat in January.