Congratulations to this year's 2009 Small Business Leader Award finalists! Under $1 million: Bill Balderaz, Founder Webbed Marketing Mike Figliuolo, Managing Director thoughtLEADERS, LLC Over $1 million: Kamal Boulos, President The Refectory Restaurant and Bistro Kristen Harris & Catherine Lang-Cline, Owners Portfolio Creative Dan Bashore, Jerry Spencer, John Killacky Bartha Audio Visual Bernard & Sandra Senser, CEO/CFO/Owners CycleMET, Inc. Raymond Bohac, President & CEO CallCopy, Inc. Join us on Tuesday, November 10, for a forum of best practices in the morning and for our awards luncheon where we’ll unveil the 2009 award recipients. Register now for the 2009 Small Business Leader Award and Forum.

Columbus Chamber 2009 Milestones

It's been a tough year, there's no doubt about it. But we've also made a lot of progress this year as a region in business attraction, building our regional assets and investing in tomorrow’s workforce. Take a few minutes to review an update on this year's action plan by downloading the Columbus Chamber 2009 Milestones.

Download the Columbus Chamber 2009 Milestones

Columbus Region recognized by IEDC

The Columbus Region was recently recognized by the International Economic Developers Council (IEDC) for excellence in regional marketing efforts including:

• Best New Media Project for the "Best of Everything" video housed on www.liveworkplaycolumbus.com
• Honorable Mention, Best General Purpose Web Site for www.columbusregion.com
• Best Human Capital program, City of Dublin

The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) is headquartered in Washington, DC. Its mission is to provide leadership and excellence in economic development for communities, members and partners. IEDC's professional economic development awards annually recognize excellence in the economic development profession.

Save Money with the Chamber

In an ongoing effort to provide our members with the best programs available, the Columbus Chamber's program has a new administrator for our workers' compensation program. CompManagement, Inc. (a division of Sedgwick CMS) will assume full responsibility for our program for the 2010 rate year.

The CompManagement program provides multiple savings tiers to ensure the highest discount possible on your workers' compensation premiums as well as competitive fees to ensure a positive return on your investment. If you are not currently eligible for group rating, new BWC alternative rating programs are now available through CompManagement for Group Retrospective Rating and Deductible programs that may assist you in reducing your workers' compensation premium. You may request a free, no-obligation analysis to see how much you could save in our new program by contacting the CompManagement Customer Support Unit at (800) 825-6755, option 3.

For more information, visit the Chamber's Savings Center.

Small Business Survey Sponsored by Huntington Bank

Huntington Bank is conducting an important study to explore the challenges that small businesses have faced during the recession. We want to know how they have survived and what advice they can give others. The survey takes less than 15 minutes to complete and is for research purposes only. Your responses are anonymous. There is no sales-related follow-up to the research.

Once we obtain our findings, we will share them with you so that you can see what strategies the owners of other small businesses are following.

Take Survey Now

Catch up on more Columbus Chamber stories by reading this month's Chamberlink

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