As I look forward to being the Chairman of the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce for 2011 I know I will need guidance throughout this year. I will be working with our Chamber President and staff along with the Board of Directors on many activities. I am sure my year will lead me to working with many of our members and our governing bodies to have a successful year. Our cars along with many industries including the agriculture industry where I work have GPS devices they can put on equipment to actually guide it on the roads or through the field to get to its destination. Although that would be nice to have something to guide us in our daily lives that just doesn’t happen. We have to be able to think and work together and use the resources required to get to the job done. As we go through this year together my plans are to help guide this community to “Building for our Future”.

Our Chamber and our community should not work in a vacuum as we move along in our plans. We are the center of activity in our area and we have to be aware of everyone’s needs. The must haves in our community are government, education, human resources and business. We have some very good governing bodies and our schools are first class. The human resources offered in this area are second to none. The business community works to stay strong and is growing. The addition of major employers and the strength of the agriculture and oil industries keep us stable. What we can do is help give all of these groups the resources needed to be able to succeed.

I have been a member in many civic organizations and community boards over the years. All of these groups have common goals to help our community succeed. As I remain involved, there continues to be one issue that just does not go away. This issue is our community is still in need of housing. This was an issue when I worked with Leroy Lyon on Economic Development many years ago and it is still an issue today. I know we have two nice housing developments currently being built in Great Bend. But there is still a need for a moderate priced housing development to fill this gap. If our community is going to continue to grow and be able to go after new business to support this region this is a problem that needs to be addressed. I plan on focusing in on this need and with the help of our members and our governing bodies we can make progress this year.

Our country and our world are in some very challenging times. It would be easy to sit back and say we should wait and see what happens. I challenge all of us to look at what we can do for our community and let the country and the world work on their problems. I believe we need to take care of ourselves and each other and do what we can to help what we can control. We can be conservative in our approach but we can begin to build and when the rest of the world turns around we will be that much further ahead. It will take more than the Chamber of Commerce to get this done. It will take individuals and governing bodies to work together to make this happen.

I leave you with this thought. Mark Twain once said "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Building for the Future,

Ron Straub
2011 Chairman of the Board
Great Bend Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development