Jonathan Morris (left) and Brandom Gengelbach (right)
In its first-ever virtual annual meeting, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce highlighted entrepreneurs and their efforts to survive — and give back during — COVID-19; Chamber programming to help businesses stay afloat; and plans for a honed economic development strategy in 2021.
The meeting — livecast at lunchtime Tuesday from the Red Productions Backlot Studio in Fort Worth’s Near Southside — took advantage of the online medium, featuring a relaxed Q&A with entrepreneur and keynote speaker Jonathan Morris, a prize for the most creative meal being eaten remotely by an audience member, and live online voting for two new logos the Chamber is considering.
The Chamber honored its recently retired CEO Bill Thornton and marketing executive Marilyn Gilbert; Paul Andrews, CEO of the major electronic components distributor TTI, with its Susan Halsey Executive Leadership Award; and Molson Coors, with the Spirit of Enterprise Award.
Mayor Betsy Price lauded Fort Worth efforts to buoy businesses, including help in obtaining grants and personal protective equipment, and the formation of the Fort Worth Now “strike force,” charged with helping the city reopen and look for new business opportunities.
Referring to the annual meeting, which normally would have been held over lunch at one of Fort Worth’s largest convention spaces, Price said, COVID “is just killing me because I can’t be there to hug your neck and give you a kiss.” But she added, “this has been the year that everybody in Fort Worth has stepped up and come together. You’ve all been incredibly innovative and incredibly resilient.”
Brandom Gengelbach, the Chamber’s newly promoted CEO, highlighted recent jobs announcements that occurred during COVID. “We had job announcements during the pandemic. How blessed are we?”
Gengelbach also touted the Chamber’s COVID-related programming, including managing teams remotely, obtaining SBA and PPP loans, and returning safely to work. The Chamber teamed with Facebook and Hillwood to distribute PPE to businesses, and with Facebook in distributing grants to small businesses. “We were there, in a time of great need.”
The Chamber, which was amid retooling its Fortify economic development strategy before COVID due to lower-than-expected fundraising, is sharpening the strategy for next year, Gengelbach said.
For one, the Chamber will form local industry councils that build off of existing industry in an attempt to draw expansions and relocations and boost the existing businesses, Gengelbach said. “We want to do it in a way that’s very specific to funding and getting results.”
The first, which the Chamber will pitch to technology concerns based in the city, will be a tech council, Gengelbach said. The Chamber would hire a staff person for each council. Other potential councils include aerospace, aviation, mobility, biotech, and agribusiness, he said.
In attracting new business, the Chamber will focus on office expansions and relocations, Gengelbach said. He estimated 90% of time spent in answering inquiries about new business by the Chamber and City of Fort Worth economic development directors is on industrial.
“That really is a wonderful thing,” Gengelbach said. “But to diversity our economy, we have to go after more office jobs.”
The Fort Worth Now strike force, chaired by Price, real estate executive John Goff, and banker Elaine Agather and directed by lawyer Jarratt Watkins, will hand over information on prospective targets later this year. “We need to do our part so they have faith we can take that on,” Gengelbach said.
The Chamber also will focus on helping to cultivate opportunities, Gengelbach said. He cited ongoing efforts to help the Texas A&M University School of Law downtown, which is planning a new, expanded campus.
Gengelbach shared proposed concepts for a new logo, asking viewers to vote online on which of the two concepts they perceived as most representative of strength, experience, bravery, commitment, and reliability. “We’re going to be very strong on the other side of COVID-19,” he said.
Gengelbach led a casual Q&A with Morris, the founder of Fort Worth Barber Shop, co-developer of the soon-to-open Hotel Dryce across from Dickies Arena on the city’s West Side, and host a TV show called Self-Employed, which will launch next year on Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new Magnolia Network. In the show, Morris will interview entrepreneurs nationally and expects to show off Fort Worth. Taping started last week, he said.
Asked by Gengelbach how the show will present Fort Worth, Morris said, “I think it’s a really cool opportunity to tell maybe a bigger story about Fort Worth. For as long as we’ve been a city, we’ve been pigeonholed. [But] as much as we’re Cowtown, we’re Funkytown, too.” The show will present Fort Worth as a “multi-dimensional city, as a dynamic city, as a city that is not perfect but wants to be better.”
Fort Worth offers a lot of opportunity to entrepreneurs, he said. “In the same way we kind of have that familiarity with one another, we’re also creeping toward a million people. As a small business, you don’t have to capture every heart. But at the same time, there’s a lot of opportunity. There’s a lot of space for growth. And I feel like we’re still missing a lot of things.”
Morris, asked by Gengelbach to share his experience of being black and an entrepreneur in Fort Worth, said, “I will say that there are moments of microaggression I get to experience from time to time. But by and large, the community in Fort Worth and the community I care to surround myself [with] has been very supportive.
“It’s really important for me that a young black person sees me as an entrepreneur,” Morris said. At the same time, “it’s really, really important to me that an old white guy who’s never seen anybody like me” also view him as an entrepreneur. “I think that what we have is an opportunity to shift paradigms of what can be, shed more light on people who bring more perspectives and new ideas to our city.
“If there’s one thing I can do in Fort Worth as an entrepreneur, [it] is to bust down doors, so if I look up years from now, there’s a lot of Jonathan Morrises sitting in the same chairs, being invited into the same talks and boards and influential spaces. I don’t think there’s enough as it exists right now, but I’m very optimistic.”
