Greater Raleigh Chamber Blog

​The Raleigh Chamber is a bustling hub of activity, with events and resources designed to support and promote the Triangle business community. But have you ever wondered who makes all of this happen? In this blog series, we are excited to introduce you to more hardworking staff members behind the scenes at the Raleigh Chamber. 

​One of the ways the Chamber has helped Eric improve his leadership is through Leadership Raleigh. As a member of Leadership Raleigh Class 24 in 2008, Eric learned specific leadership skills while collaborating with his team that have been essential in his current staff position.
“The impact our group made with our team project, and the friends I made along the way were some of the reasons I loved the program,” says Eric. “If your organization has not experienced Leadership Raleigh, you don’t know what you are missing. You need to experience it for yourself.” 

As the Vice President of Information Technology, Eric oversees all the technological needs of the Raleigh Chamber. This includes researching or installing new solutions, implementing security upgrades, helping staff members with their technological needs, managing servers, and maintaining building security. Eric performs an extensive list of important daily tasks, but he also works on many large-scale projects including the Chamber’s MC Trade system, an all-in-one membership management software used by chambers, associations, and organization-based memberships around the globe.
When discussing the future of MC Trade at the Raleigh Chamber, Eric is excited for the future. “In March 2024 we’ll see our entire MC Trade system go from a desktop/web hybrid interface to web only. This will bring lots of challenges this year but will allow us to have better web/registration and member experiences for our members and attendees.” In the future, Eric is looking forward to continuing to improve technology at the Raleigh Chamber and working at a place where he “wakes up every day excited to go to work and be part of a team that shares this same tremendous passion to improve our region.” Want to help Eric and his team? Update your Chamber profile today!

The Raleigh Chamber got several shoutouts at this year’s State of the County address for the work we’ve done to make our community stronger. Wake County Commission Chair Shinica Thomas highlighted the economic development work our team has done to bring companies and jobs to the region and praised the Triangle DEI Alliance for their work on the A Better Wake Initiative. Likewise, Wake County Public School Board Chair Lindsay Mahaffey highlighted our annual Inter-City Visit and Leadership Conference as a great opportunity to build regional partnerships and demonstrate how well our communities collaborate compared to many others across the country. ​

We look forward to continuing our work to give our elected officials even more victories to celebrate at next year’s address!

To learn more about our GA priorities you can visit our webpage.

The Raleigh City Council continues its discussion on how to improve safety and restore vibrancy to our downtown in their Safe, Healthy & Vibrant Neighborhoods Committee.
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Discussion began with a briefing from Wake County Manager David Ellis on what health & human services the county provides, and how they coordinate community providers who handle social services not directly administered by government programs. Two bright spots were the expansion of Medicaid services bringing in more resources for the county to implement (something the Raleigh Chamber championed), and that most municipalities in Wake County are now implementing their own housing plans to boost supply and increase affordability, something critical to keeping people housed.

Next came a briefing on the city’s fare-free transit program, which began during COVID and continues today. Of note, GoRaleigh only accrues roughly $3.5 million in revenue from transit fares, with about another $1.5 million coming in through special access programs and contracts with private organizations who pay for bus service to their locations. Pre-COVID, the city ran a number of programs to reduce or eliminate fares for targeted groups like senior citizens, children under 12, and teens who signed up for a youth pass program. No discussion was held about re-introducing fares at this meeting, but many questions were asked about whether these reduced/free programs could be reinstated, and that question is something you should expect the council as a whole to grapple with soon. The Chamber supports re-introducing transit fares to reduce ridership that is disruptive to normal operations, along with bolstering city programs to support those who need assistance paying transit fares.

Lastly, the Downtown Raleigh Alliance gave an update on their efforts to improve downtown and what they’ve been seeing in their day-to-day work. Key highlights were the implementation of their own private security to bolster their ambassador’s coverage of downtown, and that they have seen a decrease in youth congregating in groups downtown and causing disruptions. They attribute this decline directly to the increased RPD presence and more visibility across downtown.

There was discussion on moving discussion out of committee and to the council as a whole, but there was confusion as to what recommendations, if any, would be sent to the council. In the end, the topic was again held in committee where staff will bring some concrete ideas for them to act on at the next meeting in November. That means action on downtown safety is delayed about another month with the exception of private security activating downtown.

Regardless of the council’s continued delay, the Downtown Raleigh Alliance began utilizing unarmed guards to supplement its ambassador program by providing more oversight of public spaces, and additional resources for downtown police to respond to issues more quickly. The Raleigh Chamber supports the use of private security to improve police’s ability to prevent or respond to issues more quickly.

The Chamber continues to urge council members to act swiftly and decisively to restore vibrancy to downtown and provide a safe environment for businesses, residents, and visitors alike.

To learn more about our GA priorities you can visit our webpage.