Last month marked the CEP’s tenth anniversary. It is a milestone worth celebrating and we will be celebrating this anniversary throughout the next year. The celebration will be about the CEP’s impact on businesses and impact on our community. The CEP is nothing without the involvement and engagement of our 1,200 business partners. It is that engagement when businesses are positively impacted that the magic happens. It is nearly impossible for businesses to be positively impacted and it not positively impact our community. We have seen that play out time again over the last decade and hearing those stories over the next year will be incredibly inspiring.
But how did all of this happen? What sparked this effort? The catalyst for the CEP is no different than the catalyst for any other – it is leadership. In particular, leaders within the business community stepped up and decided they wanted more for their community. Leaders stepped up and committed to an out-of-the-box approach. Leaders stepped up and committed their time, talent, and treasure to bringing this vision to reality. In other words, leaders lead.
Among those leaders (and there have been many over the last ten years), the six business leaders who have served as Chair of the CEP Board are some of the most influential. Any discussion of the CEP or leadership must begin with the inaugural chair, Doug Cone, who led the charge to see the CEP birthed and has passionately worked to grow our community. The incredible emotion with which he speaks on why Ocala is so important to him will and has engaged many a business and community leader to become involved.
Kevin McDonald fought strenuously for a robust business engagement effort with our schools. Today, the CEP’s NEXTworking initiative is engaged with all aspects of education and is viewed as a model around the country. Without Kevin’s leadership, that program would not exist. Ken Ausley led efforts to strengthen the Farmland Preservation Area and spearheaded the initial local option sales tax which is so vital to funding our transportation and first responder needs. I can think of no one who was better suited to lead the business community (and really our community) than Angie Lewis through the pandemic. Her compassion and desire to see businesses positively impacted pushed CEP staff to work strategically and creatively to assist our business community. It was not by mistake that the Ocala Metro outperformed the nation during this time.
Finally, Chad Christianson has been a phenomenal leader in continuing the drive to think differently about our community and our economy. One of the most significant efforts of the CEP moving forward is the Sphere initiative presented by IHG. This effort seeks to grow our healthcare economy by attracting and growing our healthcare businesses to support and expand our strong existing partners. Long term this may be one of the most impactful areas of work at the CEP and it happened because of catalytic leadership.
The leadership bench at the CEP is strong with incoming Chair and officers Chris Langley, Charisse Rivers, and Navroz Saju. Each is a leader not because of their position but because of their engagement. Again, these are but a few of the leaders making a difference in and for our community. Leadership IS the catalyst.
