Manor, Elgin and Taylor are three small towns experiencing unprecedented growth, and they are uniting their business communities to get educated about what the future holds.
The first ever METT Summit, organized by the three chambers of commerce, will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, May 18 at the Elgin Recreation Center, 361 N. HWY 95.
“I think my big goal is to educate our businesses on what to expect,” said Veronica Seever, the president of the Elgin Chamber of Commerce. “All three of us are very small communities that we want to find this balance between keeping our small-town charm but embracing the growth and being very intentional with it, and so we want our businesses to get educated on what really is coming and how do we not lose the small business to the big business.”
The day will feature a luncheon, as well as a lineup of high-profile government and business leaders, including keynote speakers Adriana Cruz, who leads the Governor Greg Abbott’s Economic Development and Tourism Office, and Tucker Ferguson, the district engineer for the Austin District of the Texas Department of Transportation, which oversees thousands of miles of roadways and construction projects, including the largest reconstruction of Interstate 35 in more than 50 years.
In addition, there will be a panel moderate by Abby Mellott, the publisher of the Austin Business Journal, including Bryan Bracewell, the owner of Southside Market & Barbeque and the president of Elgin’s Economic Development Corporation, Chris Cervini, the vice chancellor for Community and Public Affairs at Austin Community College, Michele Glaze, the head of Communications & Community Affairs for Samsung Austin Semiconductor, and Brandt Rydell, Taylor’s mayor and the assistant general counsel for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
Seever said tickets, which are $100 for an individual, $1,000 for a table, $1,200 for a business sponsor and $2,500 for a summit sponsor, are going quickly.
“We have about four tables left, which is not a whole lot left,” Seever said. “We are excited. It has been a pretty popular event, especially with the Elgin businesses.”
Seever said this collaboration came about after the three chambers had a meeting about six months ago in which they strategized differen ways to unite as a region.
“The three chambers and I had a meeting, and we were just talking about how we could become more collaborative together, knowing we all have these small communities that are seeing a whole lot of growth,” Seever said. “ had gone to another event with Austin Business Journal and reached out to them afterwards to see if this was something that they would be interested in doing, and once I started working with them and looked at what we thought would be the most beneficial, I reached out to Taylor and Manor, and said ‘Hey, I have this opportunity, and they were all about it and so we have just been going from there.”
Tia Rae Stone, the president of the Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce, said she was excited to get to be involved.
“Every chance that Taylor gets to participate in something like this, we should jump on it,” Stone said. “It says that we are educating ourselves enough to be good advocates of the community and for our region. Last year, we had a similar event that included a lot of the people to our east, and this is to our south, so it’s a different peer group, and all of this is a good chance to lift Taylor’s profile, both in our region and to our lawmakers. If we can have those personal connections and that open communication, we all benefit from it.”
