Kelle Marsalis, President & CEO, Plano Chamber of Commerce
Kelle Marsalis, president and CEO of the Plano Chamber of Commerce, spoke to Invest: about the pressing issues the organization faces: ensuring a steady stream of talent for the local economy, the importance of schools, and the importance of communicating with government on matters of policy.
How has the landscape for the chamber evolved over the past year or two?
Several years ago, our chamber launched a 501(c)(3) foundation and we created a new strategy and funding program to support this that really focuses on community impact initiatives: activities around talent development, leadership development, and housing. These things are really impacting the quality of place for not only the businesses that are here in our community, but also our citizens and talent pool, the people making up the labor force for all businesses. These measures will help make sure that we have a robust talent pipeline. We are identifying skills and helping bridge that gap in both the short and long term concerning what our companies need. All of this ensures that quality of life and that quality of place that Plano is really known for.
What is the greatest opportunity to improve the region’s economic development right now?
Biotech and health sciences are a big focus for us right now. As we see more development and more interest around that, we need to make sure that we’re focusing our efforts on supporting those high-wage jobs, and that really important work they do. We want to have a collective approach to finding that talent, growing it and really understanding what our business community needs to fill gaps. This will take cooperation from public ed, higher ed and business to be most effective, and we’re uniquely qualified to bring these groups together.
I thought this was really interesting: we have a member company that advocates for technology support through our state government. They said that most of the teachers that are teaching computer science learned it decades ago. Think about how much has changed over that time. We need to implement those resources out there that ensure our teachers are teaching the most up-to-date coding and the types of things that these high-tech jobs require because those jobs are really important to the future of our community.
Texas is a great state to do business in. We all know that. North Texas especially has a diverse, vibrant economy. But we don’t have mountains, we don’t have a shoreline, we don’t have cool temperatures in the summer, we don’t have a lot of the things that attract people who can pretty much choose where they want to live. So, it’s really important that we keep those things like cost of living, available jobs, and high quality of education — all of those aspects that impact economic development — competitive so that Plano remains a desirable place to live and work and grow jobs.
What role do you see the chamber playing in the ecosystem?
There are two primary components to our organization. All chambers are a little bit different and even our partner chambers across the region all differ in the way we support the business community to reach similar goals. Our role is to bring people together, to identify how to work together to fill gaps that really help our companies be successful. We are the gathering place for education partners, for business leaders, community leaders, all ensuring that that conversation can happen around what we need to keep us at such a high level for jobs and talent.
The other piece is advocacy. It’s our responsibility as an organization to bring people together, to have that common voice, and to have the ear of local, state and federal elected officials. We want to represent the business community and keep those needs top of mind for the elected delegation. To bring people to the table to have conversations about issues can be challenging. That political fragmentation and the shift in the way people work and do business continues to be a challenge.
But also, and this is almost more important, we need to really look at the emerging policy. There are always going to be people in office who represent various things, but the policies that are drafted are things we need to be able to talk about, think about and examine. We need to really help our community understand what is included so that they are making good decisions when they vote and when they support a certain candidate.
What do you see as the key challenges for the city and region at large as it continues to grow?
Talent and the resources people need to thrive. We have to take care of our public schools. Public schools are still the No. 1 creator of talent across our business community and also across the nation. We really need to make sure that our community supports our school system, that we are working with them on a regular basis to understand their challenges and needs. We need to bring the business community to the table. We are now holding an annual Principal for A Day program, where business leaders can spend a day with a principal at a school to really get an idea of what the challenges are on the campuses. You can talk about district-wide challenges, but sometimes it’s really granular to understand what the challenges are regarding where their future talent is coming from.
We also have a strong desire to work with our higher ed partners and protect their ability to train our talent as well. The Plano Independent School District is one of the biggest contributors to our universities as far as graduates go. Those are some of the largest pools of talent coming into our workforce.
The other factor is livability and affordability. In Plano specifically, housing is always lean. We need more options, more affordable options, for housing so that we can continue to grow our workforce by continuing to attract young families to our communities, being able to keep our schools full and vibrant, and just keeping that wheel turning.
How important are relationships for the chamber?
Our collaborative partners are important to us. We don’t want to be on an island, we don’t want to be alone. We want to collaborate with other organizations as much as possible because our members only benefit from that. We also hear our members when they say, please work together, because we get asked for a lot of the same things from multiple entities. We want to make sure we’re part of the solution and bring other nonprofits, other organizations together.
What are the major challenges ahead for the Plano Chamber of Commerce?
I don’t think we’ve seen the full impact of COVID quite yet. Whether it’s a permanent change or it’s still lingering, we still see a change in the way people engage with us, the way companies engage with us, and so we’re still learning a little bit about what our role is in some circumstances. That’s a personal, chamber-specific challenge. But on a broader scale, housing availability and affordability are challenges for us. Political fragmentation and divisiveness continue to be challenges.
