Wayne Economic Forum held at Greystone
Carey Jaros, president and CEO of GOJO Industries, was one of the featured speakers at the ninth annual Wayne Economic Forum on Nov. 3 in Wooster.
On Thursday, Nov. 3, the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce held its ninth annual Wayne Economic Forum at Greystone Event Center with 300 guests in attendance. This year the forum welcomed five speakers to the event.
The first speaker was Marcie Merriman, who is the managing director for Cultural Insights and consumer strategy leader at EY. Her topic covered Reworking Work Through the Lens of Gen Z. She shared insights on how to engage the newest generation of students and workers age 15-25.
J.P. Nauseef, the president and CEO of JobsOhio, was the second speaker, and he described what he called the generational opportunity for Ohio. He reminded the audience JobsOhio is a privately funded organization with a growing source of funding and shared notes about Ohio’s economic future and what made Intel choose the Buckeye State.
Tom Hassfurther, executive vice president of Packaging Corporation of America, spoke next and shared his knowledge on how they bring about high growth in sustainable packaging at PCA. He shared the company’s history, highlighted the company’s Ohio roots and pointed out PCA still has five plants in Ohio. He emphasized the importance of people, customers and trust to any organization.
Fourth speaker Pat Finley is the founder and chairman of Vitalia Active Living, The V Living Experience and Omni Smart Living, all senior age-targeted active living communities. He shared his personal experiences and taught attendees techniques on how they should respond in a crisis. He narrated his own experience about piloting a helicopter about to crash and then suddenly doing the opposite of what he had been doing, only to set it down with a loud clang.
Carey Jaros, the president and CEO of GOJO Industries, rounded out the day and shared with the audience how GOJO lives its purpose. She spoke on the importance of the company’s mission to its staff during the pandemic and beyond. Particularly, she described how the mission helped everyone’s actions as the company had to scale its output by three times during 2 1/2 years of the pandemic.
The goal of the Wayne Economic Forum is to begin conversations that help local leaders and businesses connect, grow and thrive. Attendees received lunch with their registration and also had the opportunity to network in between presentations. The event, held each fall, is open to the public.
The Wayne Economic Forum was founded in January 2013 by the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce under the leadership and vision of then board chair Dee Vaidya. On the heels of Wayne County being recognized for seven consecutive years as a top micropolitan area in the nation for new business growth and investment, chamber leadership committed to supporting that success by establishing an annual forum to bring leaders and top executives together for sharing of business ideas, philosophies and leadership experiences.