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We're chatting about the people, places, events, and flavors that make Johnson City, Tennessee a lovely place to live. An interview show hosted by Colin Johnson.
Proud member of the Maypop Media family of podcasts.
0:00:00 - (Colin Johnson): It is the first day of October here in Johnson City, and I'm excited to introduce our listening crew, you guys, to Mister Cooper Reeves with Johnson City Chamber of Commerce. Welcome to the podcast, Cooper.
0:00:13 - (Cooper Reaves): Hey, good to be here.
0:00:14 - (Colin Johnson): Thanks for joining us.
0:00:15 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely.
0:00:16 - (Colin Johnson): I know you guys have got a lot going on. We, we just had some terrible, terrible flooding in our area, and I'm sure that's been keeping you extremely busy.
0:00:26 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's a. I'm blessed to be sitting here today. We've got a lot of folks in our region that are doing a lot of different things today. A lot different than sitting here on a podcast. So happy to be here.
0:00:38 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, it's. I mean, I've never seen anything like what we're seeing on social media about this. The, just the devastation. It's unbelievable. We're praying for them. And, yeah, we're excited what the chamber is doing to do a lot of recovery funds. You may even want to put a little shout out to where people can donate podcasts if you want. How do people who want to help with the flood relief stuff?
0:01:06 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, so our chamber has actually reactivated an organization from 2020 called region ahead. And in 2020, all of the local chambers and economic development groups came together to put on an organization that raised money and gave 100% of it back to businesses and mini grants for people that lost a lot during the pandemic, they could kind of help get some economic recovery aid. So we're doing that again with the flooding from Hurricane Helene, we're raising money. We've raised already over $250,000 launched on Saturday. So a couple of days, we've already raised over $250,000, which is going to be huge for our regions small businesses.
0:01:44 - (Cooper Reaves): So if anybody is feeling led to donate to that, they can do that@regionahead.com. dot but all that money is going to go straight back to our small business.
0:01:52 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, that's awesome. I was talking to a good friend, Andy Dietrich, over the weekend. He said that they were, you guys were doing that, and that's exciting. I know he, yeah, he loves our community, and so do you guys. So tell me your role at the chamber.
0:02:06 - (Cooper Reaves): I'm our director of marketing and government relations. So anything that's going out through press, email, newsletter, social media, internal external communications, it's coming from me. And anything that's working with our legislators, whether that be local, state, federal, that's kind of in my wheelhouse.
0:02:22 - (Colin Johnson): Mandy. That sounds pretty busy.
0:02:24 - (Cooper Reaves): Always something, but that's, that's good. Keeps me busy.
0:02:27 - (Colin Johnson): How long have you been with the chamber?
0:02:28 - (Cooper Reaves): Been there about two years. I was actually an intern and then part time and then came on full time about a year ago, so I've been hanging around with them for a while.
0:02:36 - (Colin Johnson): Atta boy. Get the opportunity, work hard, show your value, and then boom. Look at you.
0:02:40 - (Cooper Reaves): We're big on workforce programs like that. Turn interns into full time employees.
0:02:44 - (Colin Johnson): How many years till you run on that thing? Kick Bob out of there.
0:02:47 - (Cooper Reaves): I can't lose Bob. He keeps me on track.
0:02:51 - (Colin Johnson): I love Bob. He's great. He's great. All right, Johnson City living podcast. What is the number one thing you love about Johnson city? And you can't say the people.
0:03:01 - (Cooper Reaves): Okay.
0:03:02 - (Colin Johnson): Or the mountains. Taking those two off the table.
0:03:06 - (Cooper Reaves): Okay. It's home here. Wind science hill. And then stay local. Free etsu.
0:03:13 - (Colin Johnson): Nice.
0:03:14 - (Cooper Reaves): And then the fact that when I graduated, I got to go work for a community organization. Advancing place I get to call home is huge deal. But I. I love it here. Uh, all my family is here, and, you know, I've had a brother moved to Nashville, and a sister moved to Chattanooga, but that wasn't going to be me. Um, this is, you know, this is where I think the best people in our country are sitting, right here.
0:03:34 - (Colin Johnson): They are the best people, and you can use them. And the mountains, obviously, those are good, too. Yeah. And so you already answered my next question, or you grew up here and. Yeah. That's awesome. When did you graduate from Etsu?
0:03:44 - (Cooper Reaves): I graduated in December of 2023. I was an early grad.
0:03:47 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, wow. Okay, so just recently, you're. You're fresh.
0:03:49 - (Cooper Reaves): That's right.
0:03:50 - (Colin Johnson): I like it.
0:03:51 - (Cooper Reaves): And you got your degree in advertising and public relations.
0:03:54 - (Colin Johnson): Nice.
0:03:55 - (Cooper Reaves): Which is kind of hard to do when you go to school starting in 2020 to get a pr degree, because there's not a lot of dealing with the public yet.
0:04:02 - (Colin Johnson): That's right. That's exactly right. Yes. It was a hard time. Tell me and our listeners about the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce. I think some people hear chamber of commerce. Oh, yeah, I know about that. But I don't think we know exactly what you guys do and what you're about.
0:04:18 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah. So our chamber serves Johnson City, Jonesboro, and Washington county, all three. So we are our county's business development organization. We're a membership based organization, and we focus on helping businesses, you know, achieve their greatest economic and community potential, whether that be through networking events, you know, advocating on a legislative level for good business legislation, pairing young professionals who are maybe moving here or those who want to stay here helping them, you know, get connected and stay in our community.
0:04:48 - (Cooper Reaves): Workforce programs, getting people, workers in their door so they can continue to, you know, run their business. That's lots all under our wheelhouse.
0:04:55 - (Colin Johnson): That's cool. How many members do you guys have?
0:04:58 - (Cooper Reaves): I think we're sitting about a 620 or so right now.
0:05:00 - (Colin Johnson): 620 small businesses. Well, and big businesses.
0:05:04 - (Cooper Reaves): Small businesses and big businesses.
0:05:05 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, I'm sure like ballad's a big business.
0:05:07 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely.
0:05:08 - (Colin Johnson): Probably a member for sure. What do you see the chamber doing best? I mean, like what and why would somebody want to get involved, you know.
0:05:17 - (Cooper Reaves): Coming out of the pandemic? I think everybody, everybody had to decide what they were going to do, how are they going to change, how are they going to adapt? And it was a great time to really look inwards and think, okay, here's what's working. Let's continue this. Here's what's not working. Let's change this. So we did a strategic plan and the top three things that our members said were we've got to be better about marketing, communicating what we're doing.
0:05:42 - (Cooper Reaves): We've got to be better about recruiting and retaining young professionals because our region needs to grow and we need young people to help do that. And the third thing was we have got to be better about supporting our businesses and our small businesses. So I'd say the number one thing that we're functioning to do that we're organized to do and functioning right now to do is support those small businesses.
0:06:01 - (Cooper Reaves): We have endless programs and resources and opportunities for where small business owners or small business employees can come, you know, whether a member or not. We have programs for both that can help build their business, but also just make sure that they know what to do, they know how to make an impact in their community and help, you know, really add to our local economy.
0:06:21 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. And I think we have a ton of opportunity here.
0:06:24 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, we do.
0:06:24 - (Colin Johnson): Our area is growing rapidly. Right. I mean, every day it seems like we're moving people in and we're not a secret anymore. It's not a secret. I don't think it's been a secret for about five or ten years now. It's, it's really taken off. Yeah. So tell me about like different, I guess maybe committees and different things that some of the listeners could maybe join in and help with. Like what are some of the things that they could help you guys with at the chamber?
0:06:51 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, so, you know, our members are super, super engaged. You know, we obviously, we're a membership organization. We couldn't do anything without them. But everybody can get involved with the chamber. You know, we are a membership organization, so, you know, we try to get businesses to actually become due as paying members of the chamber. But we have stuff for people that just quite aren't there yet, maybe with their business to join an organization and those that are, we've got networking events every month that anybody's welcome to come to. It's just us joining people together to, you know, help you get leads, help you find a contact, help you two get to connect, to know each other. And that's what we're there for.
0:07:26 - (Cooper Reaves): But we've also got member committees that if you're like, hey, I just want to go above and beyond, help the chamber. We'll put you to work. You want to help us hold a ribbon out of ribbon cutting? We'll do it. You want to help us plan a golf tournament? Come on, we'll do it.
0:07:39 - (Colin Johnson): Come on, we'll do it. That's right. The golf tournament's coming up.
0:07:41 - (Cooper Reaves): Yes, it is.
0:07:42 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. That's fun. Okay, so how did you, did you like, when you were in school, were you like, I really want to work at the chamber of commerce? I mean, like, is this, like, I didn't have that dream when I was your age. I mean, maybe you did. I don't know.
0:07:57 - (Cooper Reaves): It's funny. I went to school, got an advertising pr degree, but when I went, entered college, I wanted to do work on a higher, in the higher education system, doing, you know, marketing this probably. I wanted to do it for Etsu. You know, I wasn't going to go anywhere else. And then kind of going through college, I had the great fortune of working with our local organizations and nonprofits through internships. My very first internship was with Ashley Grindstaff at the mall at Johnson City. I was a marketing intern over there.
0:08:25 - (Colin Johnson): Nice.
0:08:25 - (Cooper Reaves): And she took me, actually, to my very first chamber breakfast. So that was when I was introduced to what the chamber did and what they do for our businesses. And from there, I kind of just stayed in that realm. I went to Intern for northeast Tennessee tourism. Then I interned for ETSU and their marketing office. All community facing very important organizations that do a lot of great work for our people in our region. And then a chamber of commerce internship opened up and I took it. And still there today.
0:08:55 - (Colin Johnson): That's awesome.
0:08:55 - (Cooper Reaves): It worked out.
0:08:56 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, it did.
0:08:57 - (Cooper Reaves): But just going through those organizations, I saw, I mean, again, how special our region is. But I finally got to see it when I was working at the chamber, how much our businesses add to that I mean, you know, no place can function without a thriving economy, and we've got that here. And every single one of our businesses, from our smallest to our biggest, have a huge, huge part in that.
0:09:17 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, it does take the money to kind of keep it rolling. Yeah. We can't do it for free.
0:09:22 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:09:24 - (Colin Johnson): Talk to us a little bit about what was your. Were you in a certain program at ETSU that helped get these internships, or.
0:09:30 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, actually. So I was in our media and communication program, and when I was graduating high school, I was looking at a couple of different local colleges, and I went to an open house at ETSU, and, you know, was talking to them, and I said, well, you know, what's. What's your pr program offer different than somebody else's? And they told me, they said, we can guarantee you two internships, at least by the time you graduate. We've got connections, we've got partners, we've got programs. We will get you in the door of a local business.
0:10:00 - (Cooper Reaves): And then Covid came, and I started thinking they might not be able to make good on that promise, but I came out with six, so I some. So somehow they made it work. That's awesome. But they're, you know, ETSU's programs are so huge on real, you know, real life business world experience, hands on experience. That's one of our core pillars of our workforce development program, is working with our higher education partners to get students in our businesses. So then hopefully, when they graduate, they'll stay, because they already have a connection. They already have an in with somebody, and hopefully, you know, a lead on a job. So that was me. I worked with ETSU's department, and, you know, got to do a lot of cool stuff.
0:10:37 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. So I think I've having two boys in. One of them, he was an intern at, and he's still working there at the treasurer's office in Knoxville for University of Tennessee. And so Christian just started HsU a couple about a month ago, and so, yeah, I think getting him plugged into an internship, it's gonna be. It's gonna be critical.
0:10:57 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:10:58 - (Colin Johnson): And you learn, like, what you like to do, what you don't like to do. That's.
0:11:01 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely. You learn that you might like this, but you don't like it when it's paired with this. You like nonprofit versus for profit. You know, you like marketing versus advertising. You know, you also just get to learn about what business does. You, you know, learn how budgets work. You learn how, you know, what benefits look like in a real, you know, in a real business setting. So it's important.
0:11:20 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, it really is. It's, yeah. And if you can get some other businesses and leaders to pour into you early, I mean, it can change the whole scope of where you're going and what you're going to do in your life. So.
0:11:31 - (Cooper Reaves): Absolutely.
0:11:32 - (Colin Johnson): It's huge. I think you guys have a co starters program. Tell us about that a little bit. Yeah.
0:11:39 - (Cooper Reaves): So costarters is one of my favorite things we do, but it is, I think, personally, by far, one of the most important things we do. So co shutters is our ten week entrepreneur development course. And that's exactly what it sounds like. If you are an entrepreneur and you just want to learn how to make it work, we'll put you through a ten week class and we'll show you. This is how you build a business.
0:12:01 - (Cooper Reaves): It is. I won't say it's a ton of hard work, but it's a lot of work. They meet for ten weeks every Monday night from six to 09:00 p.m. so they're meeting 3 hours every week. But it's how to build your business. So, you know, one night will be, here's how to build your marketing strategy. Another night's, here's how to build your sales strategy. Here's how you find your customer. But then, you know, those are important things. But then you've got other back end admin things that you need to know about. We'll teach you about the legal considerations you need to know about. We'll teach you. You know, here's what your payroll taxes are going to look like. Here's what your books should look like. We bring in accountants from Blackburn Childers. We'll bring in a lawyer from Baker, Donaldson, somebody from First bank and trust. Talk about, you know, what your banking relationship looks like as a small business owner. And we have seen a lot of our local favorites go through it. Boomtown has gone through it.
0:12:47 - (Cooper Reaves): Crown cuts academy has gone through it. Edify Salon has gone through it. You know, a lot of our local folks, everybody loves and we really cherish as our business community got their start through this program. It's a national program. But Johnson City, I think, has really kind of made it its own and turned out a lot of good entrepreneurs.
0:13:05 - (Colin Johnson): That's cool. How often does that get started?
0:13:07 - (Cooper Reaves): So we do that twice a year. We do a fall cohort. We do a spring cohort. And, you know, just talking about, like, internships, you get to learn what you like and what you don't like. This program is important because it shows you, hey, I might not be ready to start my business yet, and that's important. We want you to feel safe failing in our environment before you go get the line of credit, before you go buy the building, before you go hire, you know, the three employees. We want you to figure out what works. And if that, you know, if it takes time and you say, okay, I'm gonna do this in two years, you get to figure that out with somebody kind of walking beside you.
0:13:40 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, I think that's huge. I mean, if you can help accelerate that whole learning process, I mean, that's gonna make them a lot more successful.
0:13:48 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, it absolutely is. And, you know, the class is super important. And then at the end, we had a little fun. They get to do a little miniature shark tank type pitch night. They pitch their business ideas to a panel of local judges, and then you'll get some cash money out of it. First thing in business, seed money.
0:14:05 - (Colin Johnson): I like it. I have to sign up. Yeah. Hey, so if I get seed money for something I'm all about.
0:14:09 - (Cooper Reaves): We have an oversized check and everything.
0:14:11 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, sweet. I always wanted one of those giant checks. Those are super cool. What else do you guys do? I mean, you're. I mean, it seems like you all are. I see the chamber over a lot of stuff. Anything we haven't covered that you all. That you all do.
0:14:24 - (Cooper Reaves): We kind of touched on it. But something that has really is part of our chamber, but has really come, you know, about in the last couple of years, is our young professionals of job, Johnson City program. So back again in 2020, when we had this strategic plan, that main point, or one of the main points, was we have got to retain our young professionals, and we've got to also bring new ones here. So we started the young professionals of Johnson City program, and that is for 21 to 40 year olds in Johnson City. But the membership base right now actually spans 200 miles. Greenville to Knoxville, that's Augusta, North Carolina, and Virginia. Folks, you don't have to be a John City resident, but it's anybody who's between 21 and 40, whether you're working right now, whether you're not working single, married, have kids, it just really provides a community and professional development.
0:15:12 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, definitely starting out, it was a social night at Watauga Brewing, maybe. But as it has grown over the past couple of years, they've, you know, they put on the te. They've been putting on the TEDx event every year. The TEDx Johnson City event, they had a southeast regional young professionals conference here last year, so they're doing a lot of cool stuff. We have a full time director on our chamber staff who kind of oversees that along with some very dedicated volunteers.
0:15:38 - (Cooper Reaves): But, you know, you'll see them everywhere, too. They'll might be pouring the beer at Fridays after five or plenty of TED talk. You never know. But that's one of our, really, one of our flagship programs of our chamber and our chamber foundation.
0:15:49 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. I think it's cool that the TED talks came to the Martin center.
0:15:52 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:15:52 - (Colin Johnson): And so I missed it last year. I think tickets went like that this year and you can't. Yeah. So maybe you can help our listeners get into it. The TED talk next year. What do you see you guys doing in the future that maybe you want to share or is there anything that you're like, oh, this would be great for Johnson City to attract or to do? Is there anything. I don't know.
0:16:16 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, you know, so we're about to actually do another strategic plan. So we're excited to listen to our members and maybe try to find two to three main points come out of that one, like the last one. But our biggest focus right now, we know this is going to continue, is workforce development. Everybody talks about it. You know, everybody needs workers. We understand that need, and we want to see how the chamber plugs into that.
0:16:43 - (Cooper Reaves): And we've already been doing it. You know, we'll take work with ETSU career services and help play students in our member businesses. The ETSU Rhone scholar, they have been doing surveys, actually, with our businesses, understanding what businesses look for in an intern and vice versa, what interns look for in a business placement. But we know workforce development is the biggest thing. So that's something we're going to continue to look at, something we're going to continue to dive into.
0:17:08 - (Cooper Reaves): How do we as a chamber, not only engage our current labor in Johnson City, but also how do we recruit and retract new labor into Johnson City.
0:17:19 - (Colin Johnson): And how that works and prep them to go to work.
0:17:21 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely. And what's great about working at chamber is something like that. We don't do that alone. We do that with our neighboring chambers of commerce. We do that with, you know, Nethub, our regional economic development group. We do with ETSU. We do it with the city. We do it with ballot, health, general shale, Citigroup, people that already employ a lot of workers in our area, our top employers.
0:17:41 - (Cooper Reaves): It is a group effort. Just, I mean, anything we do truly is a group effort. I feel like with all of our northeast Tennessee partners, well, I think it's cool, too.
0:17:49 - (Colin Johnson): And I went to, I think, the launch of it, but it was the. The upper Highlands, you know, regional development program or group where I think historically we had looked at Kingsport, spotting Johnson City or fighting Bristol for this business to attract them to their city. And we're just fighting ourselves, basically, because in a big metropolitan area, I mean, it takes an hour to drive across town. We can drive them to either one of Bristol or Kingsport, 20 minutes. So we need to be more of a family, which I love that they're doing that. And I. And then Covid hit right. And I think that kind of may have kicked that out of the water a little bit, but I think the thinking is great. And I see that growing and just becoming one regional MSA.
0:18:33 - (Colin Johnson): And so I think it's going to be. We're going to start attracting more and more businesses, and so developing the workforce is huge.
0:18:39 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
0:18:40 - (Colin Johnson): Because they're not going to come if we don't have them, the people to employ. And then having them trained up already would be even another bonus, right?
0:18:48 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely. Those are really fruitful conversations we get to have. And then there's conversations we have to have that maybe, you know, focus on the harder things because we need to bring the workforce here. Got to make sure we have the housing for them, you know? So those are conversations that we, as a chamber, have to have, as you know. Okay. How do we make sure we have these housing units available? And it's what we were talking about earlier.
0:19:10 - (Cooper Reaves): Everybody is known about Johnson City. People are moving here. It feels like by the bus load. So those are conversations that we have, too.
0:19:18 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. And we're working on the housing inventory. It's. Yeah, you know, there are tons of apartments and houses going up, but, yeah, I think we're. We're just behind, and I don't see us getting ahead anytime soon just because the demand is so great.
0:19:33 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. With our economic development, you know, it's just like a lot of things, but it's a long game, you know, it's not gonna be solved overnight.
0:19:40 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:19:41 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, no matter how many focus sessions you have or conversations we have together, it's a. It's a years long process.
0:19:47 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. For somebody who is maybe thinking about starting a business or bringing a business here, you knowing all of what we offer currently, are there any, like, holes in there? A friend of mine taught me the Crnot philosophy. Like, so you look for the hole, right? If there's like, oh, we got frozen, yogurt, we got ice cream. We don't have a donut shop. Right. We should add a donut shop in or something. You know, figuring out the hole. Do you have any ideas on something that would be great to bring to our market?
0:20:15 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, selfishly, we would love it if we could open. Somebody could open up a thousand person event venue. Cause it is really hard to find event venues for huge mass gatherings in Johnson City.
0:20:28 - (Colin Johnson): This is true.
0:20:29 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, that's something we would love for somebody to open up. So if anybody's listening and has that idea, you know, we'd love to talk to you about it.
0:20:36 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:20:36 - (Cooper Reaves): But, you know, things that we usually hear a lot of times from our newcomers and with all of our organizations that we partner with is just continuing to finding some, you know, unique new family attractions. You know, I think everybody knows we have. We don't have a, you know, shortage of restaurants and bars and stuff like that. You know, we've got such great outdoor recreation spaces. There are city parks, but also just the natural state beauty we have in the state parks. But we do hear a lot of need for, you know, family friendly activities that can be done. You know, whether that be, you know, some. Some people had mentioned we should have a putt putt course. Somebody's mentioned we should have an amusement park.
0:21:12 - (Cooper Reaves): Again, things that can't just go up overnight. Yeah, but family friendly attractions is something that we continuously hear about, so I think that's always a good need.
0:21:22 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, we got some friends over at Paradise Acres that have great, great putt putt course. I think they're adding on to it, too. And that place just continues to get bigger and bigger, and I'm excited to watch that grow. It's fun, but, yeah, that is a good idea. If you've got a family friendly idea. We have two trampoline parks. Um, but, yeah, just figuring out what would be next is, uh, is the thing, so, yeah, that's cool.
0:21:46 - (Colin Johnson): Um, what are you working on right now that you're super excited about?
0:21:51 - (Cooper Reaves): Well, you know, things have kind of changed this past week with the flood. So that region ahead, economic relief is something that all of the northeast Tennessee chambers are working really, really hard on. Um, yeah, so that's, it's kind of taking the forefront right now of a lot of our work, but something else we're working on, and this is kind of on my list, is our legislative agenda. So I. Who, as somebody who handles our government relations, I think it's one of our often overlooked benefits of a chamber membership and working with your local chamber of commerce is we are not part of the government, but we are working very closely with our government officials. So every year, we go through every single bill that is filed in the Tennessee state House.
0:22:38 - (Cooper Reaves): And some days, if you come and talk to me, I'm probably not in the happiest mood because I've been staring at pieces of paper all day, was reading bills. But that is something we do for our members and for our community to make sure that only pro business legislation is being introduced. So we this year, are putting together our legislative agenda. We have sent out to all of our chamber members, asking them, hey, what do you need this year from the Tennessee legislature? What is something that the chamber can come in and help with? What is something our advocacy or our support would super, would really help your business kind of supercharge your operations?
0:23:11 - (Cooper Reaves): So we're working on getting that together so we can have an official, you know, agenda that we give to our legislators, saying, here's what your business community in northeast Tennessee wants.
0:23:20 - (Colin Johnson): Right.
0:23:20 - (Cooper Reaves): And that's something we actually get to work on throughout the legislative session with our green bull chamber and our Kingsport chamber. We work with them on all of our legislative stuff. So that's something I'm super excited about. That's the first year we've ever done a member input survey turning into a legislative agenda. So that's something really excited about, because, again, it's important that you have somebody in your corner when it comes to this type of stuff. And it's important that you have a voice within your local and state government and federal government.
0:23:48 - (Cooper Reaves): And the chamber is kind of your microphone for that. We can get to amplify your voice through our methods and our connections and our relationships.
0:23:56 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, I think it's cool. I think a lot of people don't even think about the legislative part of it.
0:24:00 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:24:01 - (Colin Johnson): So thank you for reading all the bills and making sure that they're all pro business. We appreciate that.
0:24:06 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely. And that, you know, we are legislators around here. They have a real heart for our business community. But we, as a chamber, get to work on a lot of stuff in our legislative realm that directly impacts the stuff we've been talking about. So this past legislative session, we saw multiple positive workforce development legislation come through. That, again, helps our students from our high schools and from our colleges get to be in our businesses.
0:24:30 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, we supported bills that increase work based learning. First, high school students who maybe want to go, you know, work and see how an accounting firm runs or a marketing agency, you know, they'll get to do that more. They can only do it once or for three credits. Now they can do it for six credits. They get to double their opportunity to do that. We worked on bills that was going to take students who are dual rolling at a tcAt.
0:24:51 - (Cooper Reaves): They get a priority enrollment slot. You know, our t cat lines out the door and around the corner because everybody knows how important our trades are right now.
0:24:59 - (Colin Johnson): They're paying so well.
0:25:00 - (Cooper Reaves): They're paying so well. They're important. They're something you're always going to need. So we saw the need on that and we helped work on a bill that, um, push, you know, hey, we have got to get more students and give them more opportunity if they're already.
0:25:11 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. More funding maybe for the schools open, more classes and more professors and that kind of thing. Yes. We, again, it's hard to build houses without tradespeople, right?
0:25:20 - (Cooper Reaves): Yep.
0:25:20 - (Colin Johnson): And so, yeah, it's a, it's part of the whole, the whole cycle of it all.
0:25:24 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, exactly. So that's part of our, you know, government relations stuff. It's not always the most glamorous. It's not always the most fun sometimes in election years, you know, but it is important.
0:25:33 - (Colin Johnson): I won't ask you who you're going to vote for, so we'll leave that one.
0:25:37 - (Cooper Reaves): I'm going to write in you, Colin.
0:25:38 - (Colin Johnson): I do it.
0:25:39 - (Cooper Reaves): I'm going to write in you.
0:25:40 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, that'd be great. I don't know that I could be worse. So, you know, we've got, we could get political for a second, but I might, my friends and I were just.
0:25:50 - (Cooper Reaves): Kind of shake our heads and go.
0:25:51 - (Colin Johnson): This is the best we've got. Like, out of, you know, however many million Americans there are, I think we can do a little better. That's just where the political system is so flawed and so we can, yeah, we'll just pray. Yeah, I just pray every day that the Lord anoints the right president. Yeah. And so, okay, what would you, what would some advice you would give to your, yourself four years ago and like, how would, it seems like you've navigated very well and you're in an awesome position.
0:26:23 - (Colin Johnson): Is there anything you would have changed or done differently or some advice you give to your I self or like my son who's in, who just started at ETSU and on how to, how to navigate the workforce and where to land.
0:26:36 - (Cooper Reaves): And somebody gave me a really good piece of advice in college, and it was before you graduate, work for a nonprofit, work for a, for profit and work in a niche market. So I got to do all three of those things. I think it really gives you a different outlook on what the business world looks like, because the business world can look different from for profit to nonprofit to a niche market, to a one person operation to a thousand person operation.
0:27:03 - (Cooper Reaves): Everything looks different. So that piece of advice is definitely one I would, again, give to myself four years ago, but I think one that I didn't do would probably be maybe see some more outside of Johnson City, but just come back with it.
0:27:16 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, don't.
0:27:17 - (Cooper Reaves): Don't love it so much that you don't come back. Make sure to come back with it. I didn't do any travel abroad stuff in college or, you know, move away for a summer internship or anything like that. And part of that was because, you know, for two years of college, we were coming out of the pandemic, and things were still kind of up in the air. But I think there is real value kind of not actually getting out of our region, but just kind of going a little bit further than Johnson City, seeing what other people are doing, and then taking it back to make Johnson City better. Oh, well, I know this person in this organization, in this community is doing this. Let's see if we can replicate back here, I think your network.
0:27:54 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah. Building your network and just kind of building your. Honestly, your creativity and your idea base.
0:27:59 - (Colin Johnson): If I can get you an out of town internship with somewhere, I'll talk to Bob. We'll make it happen. Where would you pick right now to go work for a couple months?
0:28:09 - (Cooper Reaves): I did just get back from a four day conference in DC, and I don't think I want to live there, but I think I could spend some time there.
0:28:16 - (Colin Johnson): Couple of months would be maybe a couple months, maybe. You know, it does feel like there's a lot of important, cool stuff going on. You know, you see motorcades go by and actually, on the way. The podcast today, I guess our governor was visiting.
0:28:27 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, he is.
0:28:28 - (Colin Johnson): And I. Because I saw his motorcade go by, and he probably was out looking at Unicorn, the devastation there and elizabethan. But, yeah, it just seems like there's a lot of stuff going on in DC and. Okay, so I'll have to hook you up up there.
0:28:42 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah. Be sure I come back, though.
0:28:43 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, I'm sure Tim Hicks will just take you up there with him when he's going next time. Or you could ride up with Rebecca Alexander for a while. She was on the podcast a couple weeks ago.
0:28:52 - (Cooper Reaves): Oh, cool.
0:28:52 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. Yeah. So I'm excited. She's just great. I'm excited to see what she does for our. Continues to do for our region. She's awesome. And so is Tim.
0:29:01 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:29:01 - (Colin Johnson): Trying to get him on the podcast here, too.
0:29:03 - (Cooper Reaves): Oh, no. He was a huge proponent of our work. He actually carried a lot of our workforce legislation.
0:29:07 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, good. Yeah, he's a good dude.
0:29:09 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, he is.
0:29:10 - (Colin Johnson): And he's building houses.
0:29:10 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, he's building houses.
0:29:11 - (Colin Johnson): Building houses. He and Kyle are wearing it out. Yeah. What's inspiring you right now that maybe we didn't touch on yet? Anything else that you're reading or learning about? It's like, oh, this is super cool. Well, are you having to get digging the AI? I'm just throwing.
0:29:27 - (Cooper Reaves): Oh, well, something that, you know, inspires me but also gives me a little bit pause is when you pull up Google and you read that USA Today has named Johnson City the best place to relocate in Tennessee. Then they come out a little bit later and say, actually, best place to relocate to in the southeast us gives you great inspiration as a local.
0:29:46 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:29:46 - (Cooper Reaves): But as a chamber of commerce and, you know, economic development person, it goes, oh, wait, easy. Let's, let's make sure we're not setting this too far wide. You know, we got, we gotta, we gotta house you. We gotta make sure you have a job. We gotta make sure we do all these things. But I think as somebody that has, you know, stayed local and, you know, through high school and even college a little bit, you know, hearing people, oh, I'm not. John C's got nothing small. You know, it's small town America. I'm not staying here to see that somebody, a national organization, has come out and say they're not small town America. But even if they were, it's the best small town America to move to right now, isn't it?
0:30:20 - (Colin Johnson): Blow your mind. I mean, I think I'm a little jaded because I grew up here, but I'm like, it's unbelievable.
0:30:25 - (Cooper Reaves): It really is.
0:30:26 - (Colin Johnson): We are named number one. I mean, I. It's. I think, and I think it's because of the people here, for sure. And we've got awesome natural resources like the mountains and all the lakes and rivers and all that stuff. But I. I think it's something else a little bit. I think the Lord is calling people here for some specific reason. So I'm excited to see who all shows up and how we continue to grow and build, and it's just going to be fun.
0:30:50 - (Cooper Reaves): It really is. And, you know, I think it's our people. We've got all sorts of things. We've got great education system, we've got a low cost of living, but it's our people. It's our outdoor beauty. It's our. And I, again, I think a lot of it is also our businesses. You know, people know this is a great place to start a business. Tennessee is a great place to operate a business. And I like to think that the chamber is having a little bit of part in that and kind of as we progress into the future. You asked about AI.
0:31:17 - (Cooper Reaves): One of our. It's not one of our sayings, but we say it a lot. But it's, you know, we're not your granddad's chamber anymore, and in a lot of different ways, but one of the main ways is we're just really diving into what affects businesses right now, and that's AI marketing, technology trainings. So one of our biggest things that we're doing right now, too, is we have partnered with Cloudwise Academy. It's a local marketing company that helps small businesses build their websites, run their e commerce, you know, plan marketing campaigns, content creation, all that kind of stuff.
0:31:47 - (Cooper Reaves): We have partnered with them to create a program called Crushing it. And it is a monthly and sometimes weekly program where our businesses can go through this program free of charge. And this. His name is Joe McKenna. He owns Cloudwise Academy. He's a Silicon Valley refugee, I guess, guru. Yeah, he moved from Silicon Valley, works here, and he takes our businesses through website setup, website creation, content creation, how to build 30 days of content in 30 minutes. All of this using AI and all the technology and marketing tools that are at our fingertips, our businesses just may not know about.
0:32:25 - (Cooper Reaves): And we've seen great success through that. One of our best stories is Craig Charles, owner of Crown Cuts Academy. He was the SBA's Tennessee Small Business owner of the year, big time. He has done such great work for a long, many, many years in our community. But he has said working with Joe in this crushing it program has really helped me reach more people and promote what I'm doing. I think that's kind of helped me get on the radar of SBA, along with all the other great, great things he's doing in his operations. So that's kind of one of our cool, you know, not your granddad chambers, that as our community progresses, business is progressing, and the business landscape is progressing, and we need to be able to make sure our businesses are keeping up.
0:33:05 - (Colin Johnson): That's awesome. Yeah. I didn't even know about that.
0:33:08 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:33:08 - (Colin Johnson): So that's cool. We have to plug into that. I would love to. Love to check that out. All right, so I'm going to. This is going to be extra hard for you because I'm going to ask you about different places you like to visit. And it's almost going to be like, hey, what? Which one's your favorite kid? Because they're all, if they're in the chamber, they're kind of like your kids. And so, like, where, what's your favorite restaurant to go to?
0:33:31 - (Cooper Reaves): Do love black olive.
0:33:32 - (Colin Johnson): Black olive.
0:33:33 - (Cooper Reaves): Black olive downtown?
0:33:34 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. That's a good one.
0:33:35 - (Cooper Reaves): Yep.
0:33:35 - (Colin Johnson): That's a good one. Where are you going to go for a cheeseburger?
0:33:38 - (Cooper Reaves): Ooh, that's. That's a hard one.
0:33:41 - (Colin Johnson): All right. You could do top three if you want.
0:33:43 - (Cooper Reaves): Okay. Top three. I don't know. I'll just go ahead and say. I mean, it's not, it's, it's not like a sit down. Black olive. But I do love pals.
0:33:53 - (Colin Johnson): So good. So good.
0:33:55 - (Cooper Reaves): One of our northeast Tennessee heroes. You know, it really is.
0:33:57 - (Colin Johnson): It's fantastic. And I eat too many of their cheeseburgers. They're so good. Pizza place or are you going for pizza?
0:34:04 - (Cooper Reaves): That's a, that's a good one. I love Johnny Bruce goes.
0:34:07 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:34:08 - (Cooper Reaves): And I'm not. Promise, I'm not just saying chamber members, but they're all, hopefully they're all chamber members.
0:34:13 - (Colin Johnson): And if you're not and you are a pizza place, you need to be, because they probably get chamber members to cater their events. I'm sure we do. Those are probably some big orders. All right. Where are you going? For coffee.
0:34:27 - (Cooper Reaves): Not a coffee drinker, but I do love, this is not a chamber member, but I do love blues. Brews.
0:34:32 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah.
0:34:32 - (Cooper Reaves): Over on Cherry Street. I. Great atmosphere. You can usually find me there in the weekday with a laptop if I need to. It'll be peace and quiet, work on some stuff. You will usually find me there.
0:34:42 - (Colin Johnson): Gotcha. Where do you get your hair? Did you got a good looking haircut.
0:34:47 - (Cooper Reaves): Oh, I appreciate that. Um, I don't even know what the name of it is. You just go cut my hair all my life.
0:34:53 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, that's right. We won't. I could pick on you and say, good job, mom.
0:34:59 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, that's right.
0:35:02 - (Colin Johnson): My mom used to cut my hair when I was a kid. She, I think literally she. I don't know if she put the bowl on there, but I had the bowl haircut growing up, so I tried.
0:35:10 - (Cooper Reaves): That during COVID It didn't work out so well.
0:35:12 - (Colin Johnson): I cut my own hair and myself, the back porch and poor kids, they're like, they had nothing.
0:35:18 - (Cooper Reaves): They weren't going anywhere.
0:35:19 - (Colin Johnson): Like, I could get the front, like a pretty good. Like, I was just kind of like, it's like, Carly, can you clean up the back? She's like, I don't even know what I'm doing back here. It was funny. So, you know, but nobody's going to see it anyway, so it's all good. Yeah, it's all good. What's something that I didn't ask you that if you were hosting the podcast, you would ask yourself or ask. You can throw something that way if you want.
0:35:40 - (Cooper Reaves): Hmm. Do have to say, you know, we talk about it. Bar outdoor beauty is one of my favorite things I get to do here. You know, the outdoor recreation opportunities are just, you know, expansive and, you know, there's a million of things to do. But our city park systems, I'm a huge, huge, huge supporter of our parks and recreation department. They do so many important things for our community that's not just, you know, keeping our parks nice and pristine, which they do, you know, in a great, great manner, but they have kept our city parks up to just the most immaculate standards.
0:36:14 - (Colin Johnson): They are great.
0:36:15 - (Cooper Reaves): They are, yeah.
0:36:16 - (Colin Johnson): And they do a great job keeping them tight, which is a big thing, because if they're not, nobody wants to go. Right.
0:36:22 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah. So I love, you know, whether it's wingdeer, Willow Springs, founders Park, I love, love, love going through our parks and, you know, you know, just sitting, maybe taking in the sights, you know, eating whatever, you know, walking the dog, whatever.
0:36:34 - (Colin Johnson): I.
0:36:34 - (Cooper Reaves): It's a great, great offering I think we have here.
0:36:38 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, we do. What's the next big event the chamber's got going on that you're working on?
0:36:45 - (Cooper Reaves): Yes. We've got our golf tournament October 14 out at the Blackthorn club. So that's just a great way to put our business leaders together face to face. I think that might be something people are looking forward to with everything that's gone on this past week. Maybe just a little reprieve and a little joy and just getting to shake hands and see faces will be really helpful for some.
0:37:06 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah, yeah. Take your mind off of the stuff that you may have been having to deal with. It's hard.
0:37:10 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, absolutely. And then we, you know, when the fall comes, we somehow, it's all of a sudden January, and we're gearing up for a new year with a new chair. You know, our current chair is Katie Bowen, owner of finale 101. KD has led us to some new heights and new things with the chamber. And next year we've got Kim hall, who runs Citigroup. So we're going to have her as our board chair, and we're excited to see everything she'll bring. And, you know, like I said, we got that new strategic plan we'll start working on. So a lot of good stuff coming down the pipe.
0:37:38 - (Colin Johnson): There's a lot of good stuff coming down the pipe. How do people connect with you?
0:37:42 - (Cooper Reaves): How do our listeners, yeah, they can connect with us online. Johnsoncitytn chamber.com. we've got our staff page. If you want to talk to me about marketing, government relations, you want to talk to our membership director about what it was look like joining the chamber, what are the benefits? If you want to talk about our young professional or our workforce programs, we've got that staff contact. All of our other staff are on there.
0:38:03 - (Cooper Reaves): You can also learn about what events are coming up, what we offer, kind of what we do, who we work with. That's all online before us. Also, just stop by and see us. We're on the first floor of the model mill across from Founders Park, 602 Severe street. You never know what's going to be going on when you walk in the chamber building. We could be in suits and ties doing a legislative event. We could be in shorts and t shirts packing golf bags. There might be a dog or two when you come by.
0:38:26 - (Colin Johnson): I like it. Yeah.
0:38:27 - (Cooper Reaves): Never know. But, yeah, stop by and see.
0:38:29 - (Colin Johnson): Are you a dog owner? Do you have a dog?
0:38:30 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah.
0:38:30 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, what's your dog's name?
0:38:31 - (Cooper Reaves): Yeah, it's my parents dog, but I take care of it a lot. Her name's millie.
0:38:35 - (Colin Johnson): Millie. What kind of dog is she?
0:38:36 - (Cooper Reaves): She's a little chihuine.
0:38:38 - (Colin Johnson): Oh, fun.
0:38:39 - (Cooper Reaves): So I take care of her when my parents are maybe out of town or I just maybe need some dog companionship to walk through Founders park.
0:38:45 - (Colin Johnson): There you go. It's a great place to walk a dog. And now I think all the construction's done over there, too. Right. So it's all back to, back to normal. Last question. What gets you fired up?
0:38:56 - (Cooper Reaves): Fired up? You know, this is going to be kind of a somber answer, but honestly, right now, seeing the devastation, I keep talking on harping on this, but you're.
0:39:08 - (Colin Johnson): Not harping on it.
0:39:08 - (Cooper Reaves): I think it's, it's important.
0:39:10 - (Colin Johnson): It is so important right now.
0:39:11 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, you've seen them? I've seen them. We've seen some pictures. We've seen some videos of just some people and some businesses that are they might not get a lot of stuff back. So working with our region ahead organization, and, you know, working with our other chambers of commerce, specifically our Greene county partnership, our Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce, Elizabeth and Carter county, we send so much love to them right now with everything they're going through. But seeing our community come together these past three days, that's what gets me fired up to go to work, knowing that we live in a community that stands shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, understands the definition of what a neighbor is, understands what a community is supposed to be about.
0:39:48 - (Cooper Reaves): You know, I think that's part of why people are coming here. They see that our people are kind, they're compassionate, and they love what they do, and they love each other.
0:39:56 - (Colin Johnson): Amen. And, yeah, even today, Keller Williams International from Austin sent a big truckload of supplies to our office to give out. That's awesome. Generators and all kinds of stuff. So I'm excited to give that out, too. So. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been really good hanging out with you. I've enjoyed our conversation. Hopefully you, the listeners as well, have enjoyed our conversation and look forward to connecting with the chamber, becoming a member, if you're not one, but go, yeah, just get out and volunteer. Help out, connect.
0:40:30 - (Colin Johnson): They will help you out in just ways you would never even imagined. And I'm excited about all the initiatives you guys are starting and different programs you have to help us grow and become better business owners and get better at our craft and connect with each other to where we can make our region better and support each other and love each other better. So.
0:40:47 - (Cooper Reaves): Absolutely.
0:40:47 - (Colin Johnson): Yeah. If you want to move here, you want to move your business here, you can call me. I'd love to help you find the house. There are houses we can find. We move lots of people here, but we'd love to do that. Or if you want to invest in real estate and build wealth that way, too, love to help you do that. We also can manage your property from start to finish. So until next time, I'm Colin Jossen. Thanks so much for listening.