Big East Commissioner, City Native Aresco Headlines Chamber Breakfast

The Chamber’s first Business After Work Networking Event of 2013 will be held this Thursday, January 17th at the Riverhouse at Goodspeed Station in Haddam.  This is always one of our most popular networking events, and will of course feature complimentary beer, wine, soft drinks, and a great spread of food for members of our organization.  I want to again thank the whole Riverhouse team for not only hosting this event, but for their great support of the Middlesex Chamber. 

The Chamber’s 2013 Legislative Breakfast will be held this Friday, January 18th.  This event will begin at 8:00 AM and will be held at Courtyard By Marriott, 4 Sebethe Drive, Cromwell.  The 2013 Legislative Breakfast is hosted by the Chamber’s Legislative Committee, Co-Chaired by Rich Carella of Updike, Kelly and Spellacy, P.C., and Rick Parmelee of Blum Shapiro. 

The event is sponsored by Comcast.  Our Legislative Committee will be presenting the 2013 Public Policy Agenda to legislators that represent Middlesex County towns.  The following members of the Connecticut General Assembly have been invited to attend: State Representatives Marilyn Giuliano, Christie Carpino, Joe Serra, Melissa Ziobron, Tom Vicino, Matt Lesser, Philip Miller, Vincent Candelora, Noreen Kokoruda, and Emil “Buddy” Altobello, and State Senators Paul Doyle, Ed Meyer, Dante Bartolomeo, Art Linares, and Len Fasano.  Redistricting and the 2012 election results have provided us with a lot of new faces in the Middlesex Legislative Delegation which makes this event even more important in 2013. 

Michael Aresco, Commissioner, BIG EAST Conference, will serve as Guest Speaker at the Chamber’s January Member Breakfast Meeting to be held on Monday, January 28, 2013.  The Breakfast will be held at the Crowne Plaza Cromwell, 100 Berlin Road, Cromwell, with Networking beginning at 7:00 A.M., Breakfast Buffet opens at 7:45 A.M. and the Breakfast Meeting Program 8:00 to 9:00 A.M.  Cost is $20 for Chamber members and $30 for non-members. 

The event is sponsored by Webster Bank.  Mike Aresco, one of the most influential leaders in collegiate sports television, was named Commissioner of The BIG EAST Conference on August 14, 2012.  Aresco came to the BIG EAST from CBS Sports where he was Executive Vice President of Programming. He was responsible for all college sports programming for CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network.  Aresco oversaw the acquisition and management of CBS Sports College properties, including the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, regular-season college basketball and football, conference basketball championship games, football bowl games and other programming.

His responsibilities included game selection and scheduling, day-to-day operations, contract negotiations, identification of future acquisitions, development of programming strategies and coordination of new media and marketing initiatives.  We are looking forward to what Mike has to say about this busy time in college athletics. 

The Manufacturers’ Council will visit Whelen Engineering in Chester on Tuesday, January 29, 2013.  The meeting will focus on the manufacturing partnership that exists between the company and Regional School District 4.  Students from Valley Regional High School go to the Whelen facility once per day from 11:30 AM until around 12:30 PM for a class titled, Introduction to Manufacturing.  The class is a credit elective that is running all four marking periods this school year.  14 students per quarter are in enrolled in the class for the 2012-2013 school year, with 50 students on the waiting list for the 2013-2014 school year. 

The Introduction to Manufacturing class is designed to make certain that students develop career awareness as related to the world of manufacturing while participating in real life on the job experiences.  The visit by the Chamber’s Manufacturers’ Council is designed to expose the business community to this great program.  We hear all too often that manufacturers have jobs available but cannot find enough qualified applicants to fill them.  This program hopes to be a model that is adopted by other communities.  Introduction to Manufacturing can truly become a bridge between highly skilled job seekers and Connecticut employers and the Chamber will continue to support this initiative. 

It was my pleasure to attend a retirement celebration for Calvin Price, which was held at Liberty Bank on Main Street last Tuesday evening.  It was quite simply a great event for a great man.  Cal did a terrific job during his tenure at Liberty, and he will be missed by all of us in the Chamber. 

Last Wednesday evening, the Chamber held a training session for our new Ambassador Program.  The Ambassador Program is designed to connect seasoned Chamber members with newer members in an effort to make our newer members feel welcome in our organization.  The Middlesex Chamber now has over 2400 members that employ over 50,000 people.  We have found that events can be a bit overwhelming for new members, so the goal is have our Ambassadors serve as mentors and help ease the transition into active Chamber membership.  We had over 30 members attend the Ambassador training session which is very encouraging.  I want to thank our members who are willing to step up and serve as Ambassadors, a very important role. 

I also want to acknowledge our Ambassador Committee Chairman Jim Cama, and Johanna Bond and Cathy Duncan from the Chamber staff who did a great job leading the session. 

Finally, I would like to publicly thank our friends at Jackson Lewis LLP for presenting to two separate sold out sessions of Sexual Harassment Prevention Training, held at the Chamber last Tuesday.  Jackson Lewis Attorneys Beverly Garofalo and Cristina Madry did a terrific job as they covered the definition of sexual harassment, liability, and the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace.  These sessions meet the State of Connecticut’s requirement for two hours of sexual harassment training for supervisors and managers. We will be running additional sessions in the Spring of 2013.

2013 is in high gear, and the Chamber is on the move. 

For more information on Chamber events and activities, please contact Jeff Pugliese at jpugliese@middlesexchamber.com.