- PNC is proud to support "Business Forward," where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.

(dramatic music) (energetic upbeat music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Amy McCoy.

Amy is the Executive Director of the Pekin area Chamber of Commerce.

Welcome Amy.

- Thank you.

- Well, let's get right down to it.

I've had a lot of different chamber directors on, and there's some confusion sometimes between chamber of commerce, convention and visitors bureau.

What is the role of the Convention and Visitors Bureau versus what is the role that you do at the Chamber?

- Well, in Pekin, we don't actually have a Convention and Visitors Bureau, but the Chamber of Commerce is really the voice of the business community.

So we support businesses in Pekin in any way that we can.

We are a membership based organization and so we encourage businesses to be a part of our membership but certainly we support all businesses in the Pekin community, in the efforts and the endeavor that we do.

- Are you tied to East Peoria or- - We are not.

- Okay.

- Each community has their own chamber of commerce.

We work really tightly within the region though.

We work collaboratively with other chambers of commerce.

We also work, you'd asked about the Convention of Visitors Bureau.

We also do work directly with JD and his group at the Peoria Convention and Visitors Bureau, Discover Peoria.

Pekin does have a tourism component run out of the city.

And actually our Chamber of Commerce manages that under contract.

So we're kind of doing a little bit of both pieces, promoting tourism, quality of life and Pekin as well.

- I like that.

Quality of life.

The reason I ask is because you hear a lot about collaboration between, whether it's East Peoria.

We talk a lot about region.

- Right.

- So I ask everybody because what does "region" really mean?

Is it three counties?

Six counties?

Middle Illinois?

(Amy laughs) - Central Illinois, for sure.

But being a part of the Peoria region is important to us.

Pekin has its own history and its own unique businesses and its own feel if you will, but certainly we're a part of the greater Peoria region.

And we take pride in that.

We encourage that.

We want to be a piece of the bigger puzzle there.

- You have to, because of the airport and everything else.

Collaboration has become the buzz word so much this past few years.

And I say all the time, you hear the word a lot, but a lot of people also build little fences around their community or around their business, whatever it may be, and you don't see a lot of collaboration.

But you're not that type of person.

- No, I'm not.

(Amy laughs) I'm not.

I'm a team player, and I think that that's been a good thing for the city of Pekin and for our Chamber specifically.

I did a lot of meet and greet with the Peoria folks.

East Peoria, Washington, Morton, with all of those Chambers.

I sat down with all of those folks just to kind of learn the role and to figure out how can we work together and what can we do together?

I've learned some of the most important information from other chamber executive directors.

That's been a really good connection for me to work collaboratively with those folks.

- Well, that's smart.

Do you report to a board?

- I do.

- Okay.

And they, so when you do your evaluation and everything, just like a normal business, the board does that for you and you have that little back and forth with them?

- Right.

We run the Chamber of Commerce like a business.

We're a nonprofit organization, but we do run as a business.

We have a Board of Directors that manages the organization.

I run the day-to-day operations of the Chamber office and the staff.

So, yeah.

- So you do just about everything.

Cause I know your staff isn't that big, but they're good.

- They are good.

They are good.

I started as the Executive Director in March of 2020.

Minutes before the world changed.

And so for the first bit, I had a couple of staff folks and then for a while we had no staff.

I had no staff for about 12 months.

And I've just been able to rebuild our team back.

So I have two team members now, really, and a bookkeeper as well.

So really three team members that make the Chamber work in Pekin.

- So you're not doing four FTEs, right?

- I'm not.

(both laugh) It's a nice change.

- All right.

So what are some of the initiatives that you see with not only the region, but also with Pekin moving into 2022?

- There is just so much going on.

Regionally, our Chamber has chosen to be a part of the Greater Peoria 2030 Initiative, and so I hope you've had those folks on and talked about that, To bring talent to our area, residents to our cities, is really important to all of us in the Peoria region.

And so at Pekin is no different.

We are working really diligently, in Pekin specifically, to build community, to just to be supportive of our schools and our parks and our libraries and all of those things that make our community unique and our own, really encouraging our community members and our businesses to be a part of anything that they possibly can.

You know, I am involved in as many things as possible.

- Right.

I've never seen you out and about.

(Amy laughs loudly) - And so it's just important for us to encourage other business owners, encourage businesses to be a part of that as well.

We have started working with young leaders.

We have a couple of initiatives at the Chamber where we have social events with young leaders and encourage them to meet other young leaders or other business people in their age group, if you will, and just kinda network and get to know each other and hear what issues are they having and how can they work together to build.

And then we also are starting, really quickly here, we're starting our Leadership Academy.

So that's something that we do each year, but that's how we kick off our year.

- Yeah, well talk about Leadership Academy.

What is that?

- Okay.

Leadership Academy, we're in our 24th year.

So executive directors before me put together this academy a few years back, was named after Dave Tebben, prior Mayor of Pekin.

So the David Tebben Leadership Academy is about 25 young emerging leaders come together and we do 10 weeks with them.

We have different community leaders come in, business owners, business leaders, and do presentations, do team building.

We do just leadership development type of activities.

And then we are out in the community and we're visiting businesses in Pekin so that those folks know really what's happening in their own community and in their own city.

So it's really exciting.

It's a great, great program.

We love the businesses that we get to visit.

And the speakers that come in are really, it's exciting.

- Well, I was honored to be asked to be one of those speakers once, and then COVID hit.

- Exactly!

(Amy laughs) We'll make it happen again.

- Make it happen.

Cause I'd love to do it.

And a lot of this too, with my own children who are older now, or "younger adults" I guess a good way of putting it is, you want them to get embedded into that community, wherever they're at, right?

And so you're showing them opportunities and sometimes, what I've learned is, history goes by the wayside with my daughters.

And I think if you show them, here's Steger's Furniture, as an example.

Steger's has been around for X amount of years- - 80 plus.

- 80 plus years!

And if you look at a furniture store like that, cause there's furniture stores in Galesburg that have been around for 80, a hundred years and they're family owned, but sometimes they get lost in the shuffle because you start thinking about all these big business and chains and all these different things, but really that hometown business, like a Steger's or Hamm's or whatever it may be.

Those are so important to the region.

- They are.

They are.

And one of the initiatives at the Chamber is we like to highlight the assets that we'd have in our community.

And so it's those family owned businesses.

So we're going to be talking to some younger, the next generation of some of those leaders and doing some video throughout the next quarter.

That's kind of our project coming up.

So that will be exciting to hear from those businesses that have been in business for so long and still have the original family working those businesses.

It's an exciting- - Yeah, see, I love that.

I think that's so cool to be able to do that.

One that you talked about were parks Beautiful parks in Pekin.

And you don't even really think of that, but even when you drive through, there's either a golf course or a park or some everywhere you go.

- Yeah.

- I love it.

- We have three public golf courses.

We have disc golf courses.

We have a 10 mile running trail, wooded trail.

So many other parks, as you might think, just picnic, kids play areas, those sorts of things.

Beautiful, beautiful park spaces.

The park is a great community partner to the Chamber, specifically.

We host our Pekin Marigold Festival in the park each year.

And so we work really closely with them and a lot of initiatives.

We're really lucky to have those assets in our city.

- Some of the best golf courses in Illinois are in Pekin.

- Absolutely.

- And you know, former Illini golfer D.A.

Points is from there.

- Absolutely.

- But you know, when you look at places like Chicago, and Indy and St. Louis and people are migrating, we hope they come to central Illinois.

You know, I'm kind of now thinking I don't even care if it's Peoria or East Peoria or Pekin or, just come here.

Because there are so many green spaces and so many things.

And that's what people, you know, 10 years ago, were heading out to Denver because they have so many outdoor activities.

And I think the region has, as much as we can because we have weather like right now, but as much as we can, provide those opportunities.

Disc golf, as an example, it sounds so silly, but it's gotten huge!

- It had gotten huge.

There's the World's Largest Disc Golf Event comes to our region each year.

And so Ledgestone puts on their disc golf event and it uses 12 courses around the region and Pekin is included in that.

So it's exciting.

It's exciting to have those folks come to town, so those athletes come and enjoy our community.

- Yeah.

And you mentioned Ledgestone, we had them on, and then Pekin Insurance.

When you talk about some of these huge companies, think about what they do for the community.

Think about how many non-profits that these businesses and Pekin, support.

And it kind of gets lost.

- Absolutely.

You know, as I mentioned, I'm involved in a couple of other things, right?

Just the support that those businesses provide to St. Jude or to St. Jude Runners or to the Salvation Army, and being in my role, I get to be involved in a lot of different things all at the same time and so I see those same businesses, those same Pekin businesses, over and over supporting our community.

Pekin Insurance just celebrated their hundredth anniversary.

- Isn't that crazy?

- So for a hundred years, they've been supporting the Pekin community.

And not only just employing folks, but supporting, not for profit organizations, charity, charitable events, all over our community.

It's great.

- Their business is huge.

- It is.

It is.

And just continues to grow.

Absolutely.

- I like how you got, since you're married to Mike McCoy, I like how you got that St. Jude plug in there.

- Always.

(both laugh) - So you talked about the Marigold Festival and each year I have an event for my work that I invite you to each year and it's the same weekend every year.

But talk about the planning of that, because it's something for a small community.

It really is all in, right.

All hands on deck.

- Yes, it is.

So 2022 is the 50th Marigold Festival.

- Oh cool, I didn't know that.

- So yeah, so we're celebrating a big anniversary year, so it'll be a great celebration.

Our committee meets nine months out of the year.

They start next week (Matt laughs) and for our September event.

So they meet next week and it's a committee of about 25.

I've actually served on the Marigold Festival committee for about 15 years.

So it is truly one of the best committees that I've ever worked on.

Each person is tasked with their duties where it's a pretty specific "these are the things that you're going to do."

And if you execute your event, then the thing comes together and it's a beautiful event.

So we have volunteers that really just love the community and bring it together.

All of our festive food vendors, all of our food vendors at the festival are nonprofit organizations.

So that is probably the pride of our, you know, from my side, that's the pride of our event.

We're bringing folks in, but we're also supporting organizations in our community as well by holding this festival.

And so any of those food vendors that you're visiting are our local nonprofits.

We have churches and boy scout groups and baseball teams, and, you know, you name it, they're out there selling their foods, all their different things and raising money for their own organizations through the festival.

So that's exciting.

- That is exciting.

- Art in the Park is a big thing.

And then, you know, there's something really for everyone.

We have art vendors, we have a Chalk Walk around the lagoon.

Kids can come out or adults even, professional.

There's all different entry levels, but do chalk art on the sidewalk.

We have the Miss Marigold pageant, of course.

There's so many different pieces of the festival that make it a huge community event.

Those three days are a pretty big deal in Pekin for us.

- I actually didn't know that, about the non-profits being part of it.

That's really cool.

And, you know, our region has a lot of cool festivals.

There is something, especially in the fall, there's something every weekend and I think that's fun.

- Yeah, yeah.

We all pay attention to that, and because we work together year round, we take turns and we take our turn and we support each other and help each other where we can and make sure that we don't step on each other's toes.

So that's nice too.

- I'm glad you said that because there's not enough coordination.

You can call it "collaboration."

In this case, it's coordination, because with fundraising events in general, sometimes the bigger agencies or the bigger non-profits just trump everybody else.

It's kinda not fair sometimes.

- Yeah.

- All right.

So how many volunteers do you have for the Marigold or do you even know?

I mean, you've got to have a ton.

- You know, it's so many more than we ever anticipated.

So during the 2020 festival, we had to kind of slim down and do things a little bit differently.

We ended up doing a drive-through food.

So we still were able to provide an opportunity for those non-profits to do their festive foods, but they had to do a drive-through version, you know, we had to.

So I made name tags and we did a COVID check-in and I did 200 name tags, and those were gone so quickly.

So I would guess it's 400 volunteers on a normal festival year that come together.

You know, we have Staff Queue for example, mans one of our soda stations and Unity Point Hospital mans one of our sodas.

So just different organizations come in.

And so many community businesses are supporting financially in addition to the people support.

So it's amazing.

- My dad always uses the word "Americana" and that's it.

That's a perfect example of that's Americana.

Right?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- That's so cool.

So how many businesses in Pekin are part of the Chamber?

- We have about 350 businesses.

Yeah.

It's a great number.

I'd love to see it grow.

And we'll work in 2022 to make that number grow, but- - Why wouldn't somebody in a small town and I'm not setting anybody up, I'm just curious.

Why would you not want to be part of the Chamber?

- You know, I think sometimes our entry is pretty minimal.

I think sometimes people think, "Oh, I don't have time for that," or "I don't need them," but the truth of the matter is, is we need them.

The Chamber needs the business.

And we're working for them regardless of whether or not they have time to participate in "events."

"Events" that we host are just a piece of what we do.

There's so much other advocacy and other things happening on the other side.

And really, that's what I let businesses know is, "Hey, you don't have to have time.

I'm still gonna work for you, whether you show up at my business after hours or not."

- And it's just an awareness thing.

Community feel.

- Yeah.

Absolutely.

- Have you talked to a lot of businesses like I have and, is the feel, no matter where you're at, that labor is an issue?

- Oh my goodness.

Yes.

- And so, what are you hearing from some of the top businesses in the Pekin area about some of the things?

What can we do to get more people as part of these businesses?

Because I think it doesn't matter where you're at, we're all in need of people right now.

My business right now, our openings are plenty and we need people to work.

- Right.

Right, and you know, businesses are in a really tough position.

I think it's important for businesses, and I know they know this, but just take care of the folks that are there with them.

Really honor longevity and those folks that are staying with them and putting in the work and working extra, because there are so many openings and that's hard as well.

I think flexibility, I think it's important for businesses to be flexible with their employees that are there.

Maybe they need to work from home because they're dealing with a quarantine or whatever.

If COVID taught us anything, it's that a lot of us can work from home if we need to and can put in our own time and make use of that time at home.

I think it's important just for businesses to continue to support the folks that they have in house and hope that they can get back to the numbers that they need to function.

- And eat local.

- Absolutely.

(Amy laughs) - My favorite thing are restaurants, right?

And so we have a lot of friends, we both do, that own restaurants and there's a lot of new restaurants popping up in Pekin.

- There are.

We have a couple of new restaurants coming to town, which are exciting.

They're not quite ready.

We're not, it's a ways off, but we're excited about that.

The Chamber of Commerce is celebrating Restaurant Week.

Wonderful lead in.

It's like we practiced!

- That's awesome.

(Amy laughs) - Restaurant Week is the week before Valentine's Day.

Everyone thinks about going out to eat on Valentine's Day, but Restaurant Week will be promoting all of our Chamber businesses during that time.

Pekin has a variety.

- Yeah, they do.

- They really have a large variety.

You can get a great steak and salmon.

You can get bar food, Mexican.

There's just all different- - You can get anything.

You can get the hometown diner.

- Absolutely.

Best breakfast on Derby street there.

Busy Corner.

- It's funny because I was telling you before this, you know, my son plays on a Pekin basketball team, and so I'm there in Pekin three times a week.

And when you drive through, you just see every once in a while, oh there's another new place, or there's a place I haven't seen before.

And taking different routes.

So I've gotten to know the city a lot more this past year than before.

So let's talk about attitude for a minute, and maybe that's kind of my word, but a lot of times people are not always the most optimistic.

And I never get that, cause I'm just always that "rah rah" guy and you are too, but we need to get rid of that pessimistic tone.

And I hear that from a lot of leaders.

What are you, or what is Pekin doing as a part of the region to help bring people some joy?

- Yeah.

We have a "Discover Pekin Brand" that we've really been using to promote the assets that we have in Pekin.

There is so much good happening in Pekin, and so whether it's restaurants or recreation facilities or just people or good folks doing good things.

And so that "Discover Pekin Brand" is really what we're using to promote all the good that's happening in Pekin.

And so, as the Chamber Director, obviously I think it's important.

I'm the cheerleader.

I do try to stay positive.

I think I'm a good, positive person in looking for the good in all of the businesses in what's happening.

We have some naysayers though.

And so I think it's important just for us to keep pushing that positive message.

For whatever reason, city staff and city council just get that negative, you know, that just goes negative all the time.

- It's everywhere.

- But our city is really, we're really in a place where they are working hard.

We have, I don't know if you made it out to Court Street, but we have a beautiful new Court Street.

Beautiful new section of Court Street out there.

And so just things like that, that are happening.

Be excited about that.

There's folks complaining about the road construction.

I'm like, "Oh my goodness, no, this is wonderful.

It's a pain for a minute, but then look how great it is."

We just have to continue to be, the positivity has to be the louder voice.

- No, I hear ya.

So how does somebody like you track goals or initiatives with what you do?

Is there a tracking tool or do you just have set goals and initiatives for the year?

Or how do you do that?

Strategic plan?

- We do have a strategic plan.

We have the great big plastic calendars where we've mapped out all of our events and all of the things that we're doing.

Since I have a team now, I'm able to pull together.

But yeah, we put together a strategic plan.

We had a planning session in the fall and some executive board members and just that, "What things do we really want to focus on, and what do we want to accomplish?

And what does that look like and how are we going to get there?"

So we kind of lay all that out and like any business or most businesses, I would say, put together "This is our goal.

These are our goals.

And this is what it's going to look like."

I think that I have the pleasure of being creative and being free to do really what we want to do.

We can do anything in a positive way for businesses.

I love that about this job.

I love that about the role that I'm in, in the community.

Anything for the betterment of the community is great.

- So what is one of your personal goals with the Chamber this upcoming year?

- One of my personal goals.

Hmm.

There's so many.

- Cause I know one always has to be more members.

- It is.

Growth.

Sure.

Growth is always- - Maybe that's the biggest.

- Yeah, it is.

It is.

It needs to be the biggest.

And I think that with an actual team, I've been able to divide some of the duties and really put that to the top of my list of, "Okay, I need to be out and visiting businesses and face to face time."

Face to face time has been hard.

I don't want to put businesses in an uncomfortable position with COVID being in and out of their places of business, but it's important for me to be out in the community and to see what they're doing as well.

So, probably to get out personally, what I want to do is to get face to face with business owners more and just to hear from them and hear their stories and tell their stories for them.

- Do you work with realtors?

- We do.

- Do you?

Cause I've always thought, "If I'm trying to drive people to the region, who knows it better than people selling houses," correct?

- Right, absolutely.

And they let us know when there's new folks come to town.

Actually our Board President is a realtor in Pekin.

And so, it's fun to talk with her about who's come in to town and what that looks like.

We're actually using realtors as the base for the Greater Peoria 2030 Project.

Realtors and HR folks, really to feed them all of the good news and all of the good information about the community.

And so, absolutely realtors and HR.

Those are the first contacts for folks coming new to our community, and so we want them to be able to tell the best story.

- Yeah.

I've talked to Mike Maloof and others.

Danny and all those guys.

It's so important to have all those different pieces, restaurants to sell, hotels to sell, the airport to sell, because you are selling a region.

You may fly into Peoria, but you're selling all of these outlying cities.

And we have a lot of great cities.

- Yeah.

We do.

We do.

And what a great place to come, and you can go to Washington and you can have a dinner, you can go to Pekin and you can have dinner.

You can go into The Heights.

There's just so many different, fun, little things that you can do.

It's like you're going out of town, but you're really not.

- I think about that a lot.

I think about all of the different opportunities and a lot of great restaurants.

I know I keep bringing up restaurants, but I have a lot of buddies that have 'em and they've changed the way they're doing business, but they're starting to make it work.

And that's fun.

Well, you do a lot of great things, a lot of great things for the community You and your husband, Mike, great people.

Keep it up.

- Thank you.

- We'll have you back on.

- Love to.

- This wraps up another show.

I'm Matt George, and this is "Business Forward."

(dramatic music) - PNC is proud to support "Business Forward," where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in central Illinois.