SAGINAW, MI — In July, Eugene Seals, Jr. took the reigns as president and CEO of the Saginaw County Chamber of Commerce, making him the first Black person to assume the role.
Since May of 2021, Seals had been the chamber’s director of membership and sponsorship sales as well as director of the chamber’s Momentum program.
Now as president and CEO, Seals said his goal is to make the chamber more reflective of the community and provide opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses that lack access.
Seals sat down with MLive’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Editor Bob Johnson to lay out his plan. Here’s what he said:
What is your vision for Saginaw County?
Seals: “The Chamber has been around for 161 years. I want us to have more of a county focus.
We’ve been city-focused for a long time.
We are trying to put a focus on small businesses as well.
We also want to make sure our business community looks like the community we serve.
We have maybe 5% African American businesses and almost no other minority ethnicity.
White males were our major demographic.
We want the chamber to be the chamber for everyone in the county so no one has to feel the need to create one.”
What is a goal of recruiting those businesses and members?
Seals: “We created a minority- and women-owned program called Momentum.
They train for six months to make sure they have different aspects of their businesses together so they can run effectively and they can grow.
The reason we came up with Momentum was to make it look like the county. As it should. We should reflect our county.”
What about people with special needs?
Seals: “We have three autism programs that we work with now.
One is the Heart of the City Development Center. We’ve been working with them for a few years
We don’t have a subsector that’s specifically for special needs. We just work with companies that do their work. Some are small businesses, some are nonprofit.”
How will the Chamber provide fair access and opportunities to all businesses?
Seals: “What equity does is it gives us all an equal opportunity to get to a certain point
The chamber is really big on that, specifically, on making sure everyone has that opportunity. Not taking anything away from anyone else, not spending more time on one thing versus the other. We try to spend as much time as possible on all facets of business.
To make sure that those who have struggled in the past…we make sure they have that opportunity to no longer struggle.
For instance, a small business in Saginaw County would’ve only had to work with certain type of loans where the payback is sometimes harder to deal with than if you were to just wait until you had the money and build it yourself. We have different banks and institutions that work with us.
We have the MEDC (Michigan Economic Development Corp.) and the SEDC (Saginaw Economic Development Corp.) who work with us in assisting our small businesses to explain what resources are out there.
We don’t have the resources ourselves, but we have the partnerships with those who do have the resources.”
How will the culture change?
Seals: “We always talk about…‘having a seat at the table.’ What we’re doing is we’re offering people to have a seat at the table in regards to chamber events.
We get a lot of our bigger players at chamber events, but now you are starting to see a lot more of our small businesses at these chamber events.
Now when you walk into the events, it is starting to look more like Saginaw County.”
What should people expect under your leadership?
Seals: “Everybody is focused on big business…but who focuses on small business?
We have a Small Business Association. Yes, they do focus on small business, but we’re the chamber of commerce, we’re supposed to be the voice for all business, not just big business.
So, while we’re speaking for big business, we’re going to take some time and speak for small as well.”