From the Board President

Michael V. Garcia

Where has the year gone by? As we enter October, the Chamber is doing great. This past year, we retained 97 percent of our members and grew by 35 new members. It’s a great indication to a dedicated staff and board.
The Old Fashioned Barbecue has taken a new name to honor a great business legend – Lucien Flournoy. We are pleased to honor him this year with the renaming of the event to the Lucien Flournoy Old Fashioned Barbecue. A special thanks to the committee chair Kevin Downes and committee members Paul Rycroft, Sue Murdoch and Juan Navejar for organizing this year’s event. The barbecue will feature Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman who will talk about water issues facing the state and the oil and gas industry. This promises to be a great event. Thanks goes out to all our event sponsors.
As we begin to wind down the year, the Chamber will have one final fundraiser on December 1st with a Winter Golf Tournament. The staff will be selling hole and ad sponsors later this month. Contact them if you would like to sponsor or play in the tournament.
We welcome our five new board members who were approved by our current board of directors. The five new board members will take their seats in January 2013 under the direction of board president Ike Ornelas.