Greensboro Chamber celebrates community leaders during luncheon

The Greensboro Chamber of Commerce celebrated major economic investments and recognized achievements by people in education, who continue to contribute to a greater quality of life in the region.

More than 1,000 people attended the event at Koury Convention Center. The luncheon highlighted Greensboro’s next leap in aerospace with Our Future in Flight, in a keynote address from Dan da Silva, president and chief executive officer of JetZero. He elaborated on the Southern California company’s plans to build its first advanced manufacturing and final assembly facility in Greensboro, a $5 billion investment that will create more than 14,500 jobs.

During its annual State of Our Community luncheon, the chamber honored several “key community players helping shape the future of our region,” said Chamber Board Chairperson Sherri Thomas, who is also the chief administrative officer of Truliant Federal Credit Union.

The Chamber’s annual awards recipients were:

• Dennis Quaintance and Nancy King Quaintance received the Stanley Frank Economic and Workforce Development Award in recognition of their commitment to building a stronger, more inclusive local economy. 
• The Greensboro Swarm, part of the Charlotte Hornets Basketball organization, received the Kathiann Lester Accelerate Award for its involvement in many off-the-basketball-court activities to improve the Greensboro community.
• Eastern Guilford High School received the Hubert B. Humphrey, Jr. School Improvement Award of $12,000. The award is in recognition of the school’s faculty and staff to improve educational outcomes and community engagement. 

Offering greater economic insight, Tom Barkin, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, spoke about national trends. He said consumers need to expect a continuation of uncertainty, attributing it to certain economic conditions from Trump administration policies: Blanket tariffs (taxes) on imported goods, rising prices of groceries, inflation, dynamic regulatory and labor data, and general resistance to the recently passed controversial “Big Beautiful Bill.”

“They’re (consumers) tired of high prices, and what I’m hearing is that they are trading down. They are continuing to spend, but buying chicken instead of beef, shifting from full price to value retailers, from name brands to private labels, and from vacations to staycations,” he said.

Barkin explained that consumers are postponing purchases, implying greater attention to need rather than want for goods. Other factors for economic uncertainty included a shrinking labor force from the deportation of migrants and undocumented immigrants working in agriculture, hospitality and construction jobs.