The Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce visited Durham, NC for their yearly Community Leadership Visit. Around 80 private and public sector leaders from the Springfield area went on the trip September 10 through September 12.
“This was our 30th annual Community Leadership Visit to a peer community or region," said Chamber of Commerce President Matt Morrow. "The goal of this particular trip was to get public and private sector leaders from our community together in a place where they could spend about two and a half days learning from one of the communities and regions that we benchmark with who is showing significant growth.”
The Chamber of Commerce opted for Durham due to its similarities to Springfield. Durham's robust higher education atmosphere, much like Springfield, creates a lot of opportunity for growth. Morrow believes that Durham does a very good job of using its higher education accessibility to grow the city's skilled workforce as well as redevelop its downtown area.
Durham also has a minor league baseball team, and Morrow said the city has improved the area around the team's stadium. In Springfield, most of the area around Hammons Field is controlled by the City of Springfield, according to Morrow. That gives them the opportunity to be selective, and aggressive if necessary, when it comes to redeveloping the downtown Springfield area, he said.
The delegates spoke to more than 30 representatives of public and private sectors in Durham. Morrow said something that spoke to him was, despite the different opinions from all the different speakers in Durham, they were all in favor of improving their city.
He feels that is the case in Springfield as well.
“The future couldn’t be brighter. We have a great community, a great region, people who are absolutely committed to successful outcomes in the private sector and the public sector. People who know that we are only at our best and only able to do our best things when we work in partnership with each other. If those things continue to hold, we have a very very bright future ahead,” said Morrow.