MEETING MINUTES— 5.12.2016
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska – The Pizza Ranch -84th & Lexington | 11:30am-1:00pm
Present: 24 in attendance
Members: Amy Fish, R.J. Lipert, Larry Gadeken, Sydney Stanard, Joanne Bartels, Nga Vu, Barb Tyler, Peggy Green, Steve Sheridan, Kolleen Meyer-Krikac, Casey French, Diana Schilf, Tim Kirkpatrick, Steve Maly, Dr. Michael Potestas, Fred Knight, Ben Petersen, Carl Tesch, Bill Niemann, Sherri Recker, Mark Whitehead,
Guests: Amanda Wasser, Kyle Kudron, Pat Haverty
Introductions
The April minutes were approved by Barb and Diana
All members and guests introduced themselves
Member Spotlight- New Member Casey French with Farmers Insurance and Current Member RJ Lipert with General Fire and Safety/Alarm Link USA
Casey is a recruiter for Farmers Insurance and started with Crete Carrier. He took his new position with Farmers in January 2015. He is working in a new district that opened January, 1st on 70th and Van Dorn. He does not recruit in Omaha, but looking to add 15 new agencies to the market. Currently they have 12, and are looking at potentially Beatrice, York and Norfolk, etc. Farmers launched two new products; Smart Auto and Smart Home. Casey is always looking for people interested in learning more about insurance. Refer somebody for $1,000!
RJ covers about a 90 mile radius of Lincoln as well as most of the Midwest area. They are not a franchise. Lightening storms affect electronics and fire alarm systems, so the recent weather has really kept them busy! They are now offering; Power and Hand Tools, Faciity Supplies, Welding Supplies, Marking Tools, Electrical Tools and Supplies, Material Handling, Janitorial Equipment, Chemicals, Lubricants, Abrasive and much more! Visit www.generalfiresafety.com to view their catalog!
Other Discussion:
SEMINAR INVITATION:
Workcomp and Employment Law
Speakers include Joanne Bartels with Company Care
Justin Harman with CHI Business Solutions
Rhonda Kraft with Senior Loss Control Consultant
Carl Zeutzius with UNICO
Dallas Jones with Baylor Evnen
Where: St. Elizabeth Hospital
When: Thursday, June 2nd from 7:45am-12:00pm
Please RSVP by May 26th to Rebekah Lassen at 402-434-7216
Social Chair Update:
FAC Friday June 3rd, at Brewsky’s, 4:30-6:30pm!
Salt Dog’s Baseball Thursday July 21st. Tailgate begins at 4:30PM and the game is at 6:35pm. RSVP by 7/7/16!
Golf Tournament in August!
Winery Tour possibly on a Saturday. Please email Sherri Recker if you would like to participate in this.
Please check the website to view the social events coming up. There are also links where you can pay for your tickets online.
Treasurer’s Report:
Checking account has $2,700.00- has not changed in the last 30 days.
$3000 in CD’s
Police/Fire Update:
Captain Butler was unable to attend today.
Pat Haverty, CEcD- Vice President of Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development
The partnership is a stand-alone 501C6 but under the Chamber of Commerce umbrella. In 1997, the city and chamber got together because each had an economic developer but this became increasingly more difficult to task out projects. They have a smaller staff compared to other cities; Omaha has about 20-23 people and Lincoln has 4 people. Their budgets are also very different, Omaha gets close to 20 and Lincoln gets around 1.2 million. They are very focused on what they do for the city of Lincoln. There is a contract between them and the city to provide those services and the contract states they must raise 500k privately and the city will match it. This becomes their operating budget for the year. They will raise around 750k privately this year.
One of their tasks is to bring in big business. An example of keeping and bringing in big companies, is when Lincoln lost IBM to Baton Rouge Louisiana. IBM was a 500 person software development center. Currently their focus is business retention, expansion and working with existing companies to remove the challenges that affect growth. For example, those challenges could be due to zoning, government, city challenges, workforce, etc. They work with these companies to help them grow here in Lincoln. Last year, job growth broke a record with 2,200 publically reported primary jobs created in Lincoln, which also means about 4,500 new jobs were created in Lincoln. So last year, there were 28 projects, 2,200 jobs and 400 million in capital investment. Out of these 28 projects, 24 were existing Lincoln companies. The remaining 4 were recruited and those projects were pretty small. They do a lot of work with Universities and the Innovation Campus. They would love to have more HUDL companies, however this company ended up being a diamond in the rough!! There is a tremendous advertisement website for Lincoln and it is called SelectLincoln.Org! This website promotes job opportunities in Lincoln! The PED is really involved in being competitive in the market place, regionally and nationally! They also do some work internationally. Their work in marketing allows them to keep a pulse on where they stand in Lincoln compared to a lot of other communities. How to become a globally competitive city? Took a number of recommendations and narrowed them down to three: infrastructure, workforce and entrepreneurship. The PED brought in experts in those fields which brought forth recommendations. The organization is now strategically using this as a road map to improve their competitiveness.
On May 24th there is the Annual Economic Development Breakfast. There will be around 600-700 people in attendance. The key note speaker is Steve Scheels of Scheels Sporting Goods. The message will be how to create a positive work force with leading rather than managing.
NLBA Meetings:
- The next Association meeting is June 9th, 2016
- THE PIZZA RANCH – 84th & Lexington | 3:30pm
- June Speaker: David Haring with Airport Authority (Tentatively)
- Next Board meeting is Thursday, July 7th – At Tim Kirkpatrick’s
8001 Amber Hill Road Lincoln NE, 68516 3:30pm
Meeting Adjourned.
Respectfully submitted by Sydney Stanard NLBA Secretary Sydney.Stanard@mutualofomaha.com
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