Syracuse Chamber Head Hopes To Boost Local Business
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
SYRACUSE - From bungee-jump instructor to executive director of the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce is quite a leap, but Steven Hite made it.
Early last month, with passage of the chamber budget, his position became full time. Prior to beginning work with the chamber in October, he and his wife, Cara, owned a frame shop in Elkhart, where they live. They have one son, Nathan, who soon will be 2 years old.
So how does he plan to enhance business in Syracuse?
By bringing seminars to town that will help businesses learn and grow. "The Power of Creative Thinking" will be offered May 15 to "hopefully break the negative mold by use of creative thinking," he said.
Future seminars will teach Roberts Rules of Order, OSHA guidelines and "Outrageous Customer Service," as well as entrepreneurial skills.
"These seminars will help keep our business community updated," he said, adding that there will be a fee for attending most of them.
Hite also is negotiating with Sprint to ease the burden of long-distance calling. The project calls for Sprint to offer local phone service from Syracuse to Goshen, Warsaw, Ligonier and all points in between.
The Legislative Action Committee is working with the State Chamber to eliminate the inventory tax as well as monitor taxation at all levels.
Working with the Wawasee schools, the chamber meets monthly with them to help improve education through job sharing. It also distributes the sports flags being sold by the Gridiron Club and sponsors the Senior Academic Athletic Award presented to the senior with the highest GPA above a B in each of the school's 22 sports.
Plans also are under way to offer a call-in for time and temperature in Syracuse. Businesses will sponsor the information and the advertising dollars will pay for the service.
Explaining his plans for each of the areas mentioned in the chamber's mission statement, Hite says the board's reticence to support the Syracuse Community Center is directly related to the proposed increase in taxes, an opinion expressed by chamber treasurer Daniel Haifley at the last meeting.
"Information I have shows that the mean income for townspeople is $14,000 annually, and even $5-a-month tax increase could be hard for some of them. Now if the township also would be taxed to pay for the center, it would shift some of the financial burden," he said.
To promote fun and a sense of community, next summer he hopes to be part of a sponsoring body that will take 10 high school baseball teams to play each other at Kovaleski Field, South Bend.
Another part of his job is to network with other chambers in the area. He has opened lines of communication with chambers in Elkhart County, but Kosciusko County has only two chambers with staffs.
The other is in Warsaw, and he has not yet contacted North Webster.
The chamber office can serve as a checkpoint for planning. In it is a large wall calendar with various town activities written in. Not all groups post their activities on the calendar, but those who do will find their activities promoted through the chamber newsletter. Eventually Hite hopes all information will flow through his office, which will help in coordinating community activities.
"One day I would like to see the chamber serve as the town's visitors center," he said, explaining that he already is working to bring statewide meetings to Syracuse.
To date he has not addressed the issue of the proposed five-lane Ind. 13 expansion, which will affect access to all Syracuse businesses, nor has he addressed the issue of possible change to the town's area code as all of northern Indiana is revised.
His hope is that Syracuse can retain its small-town atmosphere. He is especially taken by Nashville, Ind., and hopes that Syracuse one day will be like that - a center of tourism in northern Indiana with neat little shops, bakeries and eateries.
Hite holds a degree in communication and theater from Indiana State University, Terre Haute, a master's degree in biblical studies from Andersonville Baptist Seminary through a correspondence course, which he also is using to earn a doctorate from there. He also holds a theology degree from Indiana Fundamental Bible College, at Grace Bible Baptist Church, Syracuse.
Chamber activities are paid for through dues and fund-raising activities, which include the golf outing, a barbecue chicken sale, the time and temperature call-in service and other activities.
Hite is in the office each weekday from 9 a.m. to noon. It is in the McWest Center, 12225 Ind. 13N. You can visit the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce Web site at swchamber.com [[In-content Ad]]
SYRACUSE - From bungee-jump instructor to executive director of the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce is quite a leap, but Steven Hite made it.
Early last month, with passage of the chamber budget, his position became full time. Prior to beginning work with the chamber in October, he and his wife, Cara, owned a frame shop in Elkhart, where they live. They have one son, Nathan, who soon will be 2 years old.
So how does he plan to enhance business in Syracuse?
By bringing seminars to town that will help businesses learn and grow. "The Power of Creative Thinking" will be offered May 15 to "hopefully break the negative mold by use of creative thinking," he said.
Future seminars will teach Roberts Rules of Order, OSHA guidelines and "Outrageous Customer Service," as well as entrepreneurial skills.
"These seminars will help keep our business community updated," he said, adding that there will be a fee for attending most of them.
Hite also is negotiating with Sprint to ease the burden of long-distance calling. The project calls for Sprint to offer local phone service from Syracuse to Goshen, Warsaw, Ligonier and all points in between.
The Legislative Action Committee is working with the State Chamber to eliminate the inventory tax as well as monitor taxation at all levels.
Working with the Wawasee schools, the chamber meets monthly with them to help improve education through job sharing. It also distributes the sports flags being sold by the Gridiron Club and sponsors the Senior Academic Athletic Award presented to the senior with the highest GPA above a B in each of the school's 22 sports.
Plans also are under way to offer a call-in for time and temperature in Syracuse. Businesses will sponsor the information and the advertising dollars will pay for the service.
Explaining his plans for each of the areas mentioned in the chamber's mission statement, Hite says the board's reticence to support the Syracuse Community Center is directly related to the proposed increase in taxes, an opinion expressed by chamber treasurer Daniel Haifley at the last meeting.
"Information I have shows that the mean income for townspeople is $14,000 annually, and even $5-a-month tax increase could be hard for some of them. Now if the township also would be taxed to pay for the center, it would shift some of the financial burden," he said.
To promote fun and a sense of community, next summer he hopes to be part of a sponsoring body that will take 10 high school baseball teams to play each other at Kovaleski Field, South Bend.
Another part of his job is to network with other chambers in the area. He has opened lines of communication with chambers in Elkhart County, but Kosciusko County has only two chambers with staffs.
The other is in Warsaw, and he has not yet contacted North Webster.
The chamber office can serve as a checkpoint for planning. In it is a large wall calendar with various town activities written in. Not all groups post their activities on the calendar, but those who do will find their activities promoted through the chamber newsletter. Eventually Hite hopes all information will flow through his office, which will help in coordinating community activities.
"One day I would like to see the chamber serve as the town's visitors center," he said, explaining that he already is working to bring statewide meetings to Syracuse.
To date he has not addressed the issue of the proposed five-lane Ind. 13 expansion, which will affect access to all Syracuse businesses, nor has he addressed the issue of possible change to the town's area code as all of northern Indiana is revised.
His hope is that Syracuse can retain its small-town atmosphere. He is especially taken by Nashville, Ind., and hopes that Syracuse one day will be like that - a center of tourism in northern Indiana with neat little shops, bakeries and eateries.
Hite holds a degree in communication and theater from Indiana State University, Terre Haute, a master's degree in biblical studies from Andersonville Baptist Seminary through a correspondence course, which he also is using to earn a doctorate from there. He also holds a theology degree from Indiana Fundamental Bible College, at Grace Bible Baptist Church, Syracuse.
Chamber activities are paid for through dues and fund-raising activities, which include the golf outing, a barbecue chicken sale, the time and temperature call-in service and other activities.
Hite is in the office each weekday from 9 a.m. to noon. It is in the McWest Center, 12225 Ind. 13N. You can visit the Syracuse-Wawasee Chamber of Commerce Web site at swchamber.com [[In-content Ad]]