Situation: In the late 1990's the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier began to realize that in the next 10-20 years they were going to see a major exodus of the baby-boomer generation from the workplace. Simultaneously, it was evident that there was not an adequate pipeline of new talent emerging to fill job openings and our region's population was on a decline. In response to this challenge a partnership consisting of Jamestown Community College and the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier opened the Manufacturing Technology Institute in 2003. Working together, our organizations developed training and course offerings designed to build a more abundant and trained workforce for manufacturers in the region.
Task/Role: My role was to manage the facility and training, support the build out of new programming and services and bring MTI's programming and services to market.
Action: On a very modest budget we began marketing and promoting the programs and services at MTI. This included regular tours of students through the facility, engaging with counselors and technology teachers in area schools, attending, speaking and recruiting at sessions with dislocated workers, meeting with employers to sell contract training for their employees, advertising, earned media events and production of a TV show.
Result: MTI was profitable in its first year and the programming and services continued to grow. Another notable accomplishment was that classes filled up in the first year of the welding technology degree program. MTI was achieving our vision of being a center of excellence in support of manufacturing in the region.
TV Ads & Scripts
Radio Ads & Scripts
Radio Ad: This was one of several radio ads that we developed to promote training and Courses at MTI. I led the development of the script, the ad content and I performed the voice over for the radio ad campaign.
Manufacturing Mayhem TV Show
Manufacturing Mayhem: The show was developed to highlight manufacturing, the creativity and fun involved and the program served as an hour long commercial for MTI programming. There were two of us that came up with the concept of the show. We had a third person help us with videotaping and editing. I helped identify the projects, put together the production plan, recruited people from industry and area schools to participate, secured sponsors and coordinated with local tv for broadcasting. In addition, we had always had a couple of extra cameras available so we could help gather b-roll. We would pre-edit some of the content and then we would work on final production as a team.
Situation: Very early in the launch of the Manufacturing Technology Institute, it was evident that there were many misperceptions among students, educators, counselors and the general public as it pertained to manufacturing and the careers it offers. The perceptions were that manufacturing is dirty, dark and dangerous. We recognized we had to change that view of manufacturing as the industry had changed significantly.
Task/Role: With support of the Manufacturers Association, I led the start of the DIDI program in Chautauqua County and ultimately facilitated the expansion of the initiative into neighboring counties. I have served as the President of DIDI and in that role have managed a variety of projects to help students, teachers and counselors connect with manufacturers and better understand manufacturing careers. Today, DIDI is an initiative of the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier designed to educate the next generation workforce about careers in advanced manufacturing.
Action: Between 2003 and 2009 we implemented a variety of strategies to help communicate the excellent career opportunities available in advanced manufacturing. In 2009 we formalized the strategy within the Dream It Do It (DIDI) program. DIDI was a national program and Chautauqua County was one of the early adapters of the model. As an initiative of the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier, DIDI began conducting tours of local manufacturing facilities on a regular basis, took hands on activities into the classroom and put together events that brought together students from area school districts to compete in events where the students could display their technology skills.
Result: As a result of this effort the organization achieved over 60,000 interactions with students across a two county region and on an event by event basis we identified that the programming had effectively improved participant impression of manufacturing.
Manufacturing Month Kickoff Event 2022
Annually the MAST and DIDIWNY produce a manufacturing month kickoff event in October. For the 2022 event, I coordinated the event, putting together the agenda, managing logistics, reaching out to elected officials and inviting the media.
DIDIWNY Web-Site Overhaul 2021
In late 2020, working with my team, I initiated a complete overhaul of the DIDI web-site. The goal was to make it a useful tool particularly for teachers and counselors, while still being appealing to students. We have found the web-site to be a useful tool in terms of providing teachers and counselors with information regarding manufacturing and providing a resources to supplement teaching in the classroom and as a resource to house information for upcoming event programming.
In 2016 my team and I worked with Kranky Plate productions to create a video highlighting manufacturing in our region and the role of DIDI. This was developed as a video with a primary target of middle and high-school students. I worked with my team to develop the overall message and script for this video and provide input to the video content.
Situation: The community of Fredonia, NY had been recommended as a candidate for the Small Business Revolution (SBR) television show. The SBR is a production of the Deluxe Corporation hosted by Amanda Brinkman and Ty Pennington that airs on Amazon Prime and Hulu and invests $500,000 in support to the community. In early October of 2019, representatives from Deluxe and the Small Business Revolution reached out to me at the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce to gather more information regarding Fredonia. Working with a colleague who works in Fredonia, we quickly assembled photographs, some historical background, a summary of local small businesses and general information regarding the region. Fredonia was a community among over 4,000 communities across the United State that were being reviewed to participate in the show. In late October, I was notified that Fredonia was among the top 10 communities and would receive a visit from SBR representatives to meet with local leaders, businesses and tour the community and then make a determination if we qualified to be in the top five.
Task/Role: In my role as President/CEO of the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce I took on additional roles to bring this opportunity to fruition including team manager, strategic planner, campaign manager, community organizer, public relations manager and internet and social media systems integrator.
Action: The SBR team was coming into town on December 11th. I assembled a team of leaders, business and community leaders from the Fredonia community into an initial meeting to discuss the opportunity. During that meeting, I presented the scope of the opportunity and recommendations on what we needed to do to bring the program to Fredonia. That first meeting was an opportunity for those involved to make a variety of recommendations, many of which we adapted into the plan. The most important idea identified that came from the team was to host a rally at the Fredonia Opera House. We started a pre-campaign on social media with the #myfredonia. We created five core tactics and assigned them to team members. The rally, a tour of the community and then dinner was a surprise to the SBR representatives and a huge success.
On January 14th we held another community rally where we were notified that Fredonia was selected by SBR to be among the top five communities. We held another The final determining factor of the community that would be selected from among the top five. On January 14th voting would begin and last until January 21st. In preparation for the announcement on the 14th I led the effort to put in place the infrastructure for campaign with the goal of 'Winning the Revolution'. Our mantra for the next week would be VOTEMYFREDONIA. The campaign would be an aggressive grassroots, social media, email, paid media and earned media blitz. The campaign included several, often early morning, news conferences with media from Buffalo. We had a visit from then Lieutenant Governor Hochul plus her endorsement on social media. We secured social media endorsements from a variety of local elected officials and Senator Chuck Schumer. We also received a celebrity social media endorsement from comedian Mark Russel. Our campaign included a couple pub crawls with the team to 'gin up' support and votes for Fredonia. I wrote a song called, 'The 1891' which was a reference to the Fredonia Opera House and the tag line in the song was 'Vote My Fredonia, every day on every device!'.
Result: We won! Statistic wise we never were told the total votes garnered. What we did know is that we captured votes from 47 state in the nation. We had votes from six ctounries outside of the United States. We reached 380,971 people through social media along with 857,579 impressions. Through our paid media campaign we garnered 968,000 estimated coverage views and 6,420 media shares. Most importantly it was an economic development opportunity for Fredonia that put a spotlight on the community and helped seven businesses grow. You can watchthe SBR Season Five: Final Production.
Project/Event Planning Worksheet - Small Business Revolution - Fredonia
Detailed Social Media Plan: This plan was put together by Grace Czechowksi, the person who originally brought Fredonia to the attention of SBR. I worked closely with her to garner her knowledge of social media and advice. She was instrumental in helping sculpt the social media strategy. In addition I worked with Jonathan Weston, owner of Panama Rocks, who I consider an expert in using Facebook. He worked with me to design a way to incentivize email and cell phone number gathering in preparation for the campaign. Working together we then set up a Facebook, email and a texting campaign to remind people to vote.
News Release - Fredonia Proud to Be In the Top Five for Small Business Revolution
Media Coverage: With the help of Gary Hahn (National Comedy Center) and Jeffrey Woodard (Director of Marketing and Communications at SUNY Fredonia and a former Executive with Buffalo based media outlets we secured a series of earned media opportunities.
SBR Announcement Night: During the various rallies and events during the SBR campaign I took primary responsibility to put together slide shows that would run either prior to or during the program. This deck was the most fun to put together as I and one other person were swarn to secrecy and were the only two people in the community that knew we had won the competition.
World Unknown Productions is a company that my son and I have formed to produce, publish and distribute music we have created in our studio.
Starting in 2020 we began work on a production studio in our garage. The project was completed in the summer of 2021. In the summer of 2022 I worked on setting up our operation for publishing and distribution of music. In doing so I built two basic web-sites. One site for World Unknown Productions and a second for my son LAWTON JAY.
During my 13 year tenure as President/CEO of the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce I worked on a variety of marketing, communications and public relations programs and events. There are six member service related project I initiated and worked my team to implement.
Chamber Insurance Plan Transition: In 2009 we transitioned to a new platform to continue to offer health insurance to our membership. This was a technically challenging initiative. Importantly, clear communication with our members was essential because the change we made was significant in that it not only changed the way we delivered benefits but changed our plan offering. I worked with staff and we delivered on a series of informational sessions, numerous direct communications to our clients, individual meetings with clients, along with news releases and radio interviews.
E-News Transition: I initiated a transition away from a print to E-news communication. Working with the team we moved to an electronic monthly newsletter which then transitioned to a weekly communication to the membership.
Shoptauqua Gift Card (now Shop Local CHQ Gift Card): I initiated a move away from paper checks to a gift card that could be redeemed at participating businesses. This was another technically challenging initiative. It required consistent communication with our membership as well as the general public. For our membership it required changes within their processing systems. For the general public it required that we work with them to address outstanding paper checks while also introducing a different process in terms of ordering cards.
Shop Where I Live On-Line Sales Platform: During the pandemic the Chamber recognized that our members needed another tool to help them sell products. With foot traffic drying up, we ventured to launch an on-line sales platform. We partnered with Shop Where I live to launch a new resource for local small businesses. Behind it we put a strong push to get businesses on the platform while also informing the public of its availability.
Chamber Member Investment Tiers: Recognizing that the value proposition of a membership in the Chamber of Commerce was sometimes difficult to articulate, I initiated a process with support of the board of directors, to change the Chamber's membership structure. To accomplish this I reached out to several chambers across the United States to gather best practices. We then put together a variety of models that we vetted with a the board and several members. We refined the model. In the final year of my tenure we rolled out the new model to the member/investors in the Chamber. This required a significant amount of communication, often directly with some members to help communicate the change and its benefit to them.
Pandemic Communications Coordination: A large employer in the region during the pandemic stated, "I often get inundated with emails from a variety of places, however when I get information from CCCC/MAST it is important, very clear, to the point and helpful without the fluff." Here is a summary of the work our team did during the pandemic to help guide our membership through that challenging period:
We provided daily guidance to businesses.
Our boards (MAST & Chamber) convened together on a weekly basis to strategize next steps.
We communicated with manufacturers throughout the region to make sure they were identified as ‘essential’ so they could continue to manufacture product and when they ran into issues getting the approval or it was unclear, we were on the phone with Empire State Development and the Governor’s staff.
We distributed thousands of masks to local businesses in cooperation with other organizations.
We held a series of zoom meetings at times weekly to provide updates.
We prepared and distributed a white paper on how to safely reopen the economy and engaged directly with our County Health Department, State leaders and others.
We developed, to my knowledge, the first reopening plans in the State for a variety of business sectors prior to NYS rolling out their guidance. Interestingly the format NYS created ended up looking very similar to what we had prepared prior to the State presenting their template.
We had a zoom meeting with then Lt Governor Kathy Hochul where I confidently opened the discussion by communicating that we are ready to safely open our economy in the Southern Tier.
We participated in weekly meetings with a WNY regional coalition of organizations to share best practices, get updates on science-based data regarding vaccines and address the challenges of vaccine availability in various communities in the region.
We advocated regionally and at the State level for testing kits and vaccine allocations to our rural communities.
We worked with health care providers and institutions to set up special vaccination clinics specific for our members employees and in some cases coordinated them directly into workplaces.
When testing kits did arrive, we worked closely with County Health and the County Executive to push them out to the community.
We encouraged and laid the groundwork for the creation of the CHQ Health Collaborative.