New Adrian Area Chamber Director - John Bartoszewicz

Posted by Chuck Chase

on Jan 15, 2015

Rod Pender introduced our speaker today, John Bartoszewicz, new President and CEO of the Adrian Area Chamber of Commerce and a former Rotarian. John is originally from Rochester, New York. His father worked for Xerox there and then took a position with Monsanto with an opportunity to move to Pensacola, Florida or Cleveland. He chose Florida! This was in the 60’s John said. John’s wife, Sandra (Linfoot) is a native of Adrian and her family till live on Springbrook Avenue. John worked for the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce (2,000 members and 5 departments – Membership, Economic Development, Military, Tourism and Community Development). He also founded a telephone installation system business while in Penecola. John said that he experienced a medical setback in 2013. He said that he’d been visiting Adrian for the past 20 years since his wife’s folks are still here and that he “has fallen in love with this area”. Sandra’s mother mentioned to her while she was visiting last Labor Day that Anne Hughes was retiring from the Adrian Chamber. She conveyed that to John who promptly sent a resume in for consideration which resulted in his hiring.

John said that Anne left the Chamber (500 members) “in pretty solid shape” and admitted that he has large shoes to fill. He officially arrived on December 11^th and took over this past January 1^st. John mentioned that through the research he’s conducted of Adrian (a "20,000 foot view"), this Chamber “could really become a ‘business chamber’”. Something else he noticed is that the Chamber really doesn’t have enough committees. One, he said, should be health care since he feels strongly that the prosperity of a community is directly related to health of that community. The Chamber, he said, should engage with the medical community. He also pointed out that there seems to be little engagement with the political process and suggested a system that would allow the business community to recommend to educational organizations the appropriate programs they might want to offer.

He also suggested that a government advocacy group be formed where representatives would regularly attend various city, county, and school board meetings to stay abreast of what was being discussed and acted upon. By doing this, he said, the Chamber “would keep people in the know” and issues “would not slide under the radar”. John said that businesses join a chamber to generate more business so he’d like to see more networking opportunities for businesses in Adrian. Businesses also want “operational engagement” as well where “business development” assistance might be offered to those needing it.

John has assigned staff persons to begin work defining and redesigning the Chamber’s website to make it more user-friendly. John said that he’s already attended the monthly meeting of the Chamber Alliance in Lenawee County where he identified an opportunity to create a site for a common page where all events could be posted.

John also said that member recruitment will also be an important effort of the Chamber. He said also that he felt that the relationship with the industrial services base could be enhanced for a couple of reasons. One, because they have not been reached out to and, two, he is a big proponent of “selling them what they want” and he’s not sure what that is but he is working on it.

This year’s Annual Meeting, John said, is scheduled for January 29^th at the Center. Awards like the Image Award will be given out that evening. He would like to increase the Chamber’s Ambassador group of which Rod Pender is a part of. He concluded by saying that he would like to see ambassadors who attend Chamber events dress in red jackets so that they are always easily recognizable. (For tickets to the Annual Chamber event go to: www.adrianareachamber.com.

Welcome to Adrian, John. Great to have you a significant part of this fine community!