PITTSFIELD, Mass. — CNBC's Ron Insana offered some 200 business and civic leaders encouragement on Friday morning as Berkshire Job Summit opened at the Crowne Plaza.
The senior analyst for the financial network said the economy appears to be rebounding.
"People keep looking for death and destruction," he said, "when they should be looking for an opportunity to get back in.
"It's a good time to strengthen your business, good time to start growing."
The goal of the morning-long session was to get local employers fired up on new opportunities and offer some ideas on how to get started, said organizers Allen Harris of Berkshire Money Management and Sherman Baldwin of radio show "TalkBerkshires" on WBRK.
Local businesses need to invest in themselves now to take advantage of the opportunities available as the economy improves from the worst economic downtown in 70 years, said Harris in his opening remarks. "The message is 2010 is going to be the best year ever."
The morning went off smoothly despite
coming under fire recently after The Berkshire Eagle published reports detailing the two organizers' run ins with the law and skepticism over claims of the event's job-creation goals.
Despite that, at least 200 guests RSVP'd; close to that number showed up for Insana, the morning's first speaker. (Insana said he was unaware of any controversy having "arrived here at 1 a.m.")
Among those attending were the county's two mayors, James Ruberto and Richard Alcombright, city councilors including Peter White, John Krol and Michael Ward, and business community leaders such as William Hines and Michael Supranowicz.
Noting the hard work to put an event like this together, Baldwin joked, "at least there wasn't any controversy."
"In spite of the controversy, in spite of questions, in spite of mistakes Allen and I made, you're all here today."
Baldwin said it was because "we all love our lives in the Berkshires we all love the businesses we represent and we all want them to grow strong."
Business and breakfast at the Crowne Plaza. |
Insana said signs the economy is turning around inlcluded carmakers increasing production (both from depleted inventory from the federal "cash for clunkers" and a chance to take on a weakened Toyota) , the banks are sitting on a lot of capital, the market is up, and "there are stirrings that entrepreneurs are trying to get things going."
He had little good to say about the federal stimulus package that concentrated too much on filling potholes and congressional pet projects than forging new ground.
It was "ill-conceived, ill-focused," said Insana, and should have focused on new technology, such as power grid infrastructure, which would create future jobs.
"That technology, the technology of the future is what should have been focused on, not the technology of the past."
Entrepreneurs and employers interested in capitalizing on a resurging financial sector and that new technology were provided an overview of what the Small Business Administration can offer by SBA Springfield branch manager P. Edgardo Tarrats. Some
federal stimulus progams are still available.
Ken Singer, executive director of Berkshire County Arc, encouraged employers to consider giving workers with disabilities a chance at employment. The agency was the only one in Western Mass. awarded a
$500,000 grant to develop a regional employment board for the disabled.
Wrapping up the event was
Jonathan Salem Baskin, who spoke on branding and providing a quality and reliable service.
"I think it was a great turnout and a successful dialogue," said Baldwin. "I'm very happy about what's going to transpire after this summit."
Harris said they had a few different ways to follow up, including through
BerkshireJobSummit.com and Baldwin's radio show and
Web site.
"I'm taking over his airwaves and his Web site," laughed Harris. "But he has built in a way so that we continue to follow up on this."
"I think this really is the just the start just the start of the dialogue that's what's important.
"We've always looked at this as the start of the dialogue," said Baldwin.
Below is the original post jotted down during the summit. We were not able to stay for the entire morning. We encourage anyone who attended to tell us in the comment section what they thought about it or e-mail us at info@iberkshires.com.PITTSFIELD, Mass.
